


City of Dreams

by Siavahda



Series: Runed [2]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Clary is a Lewis, F/F, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Simon is a Fray, attempted snark, mysterious mysteries are mysterious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:59:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 89,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can’t believe you brought me here,” Jace said, eying their surroundings with completely unreasonable distrust. “At least tell me there’s a host of demons masquerading as the frankly dubious-looking horses on the carousel, and we’re here to dispatch them before they eat any children?”</p><p>Simon side-eyed him. “You have a strange and suspicious mind.”</p><p><i>“I’m</i> not the one who brought a Shadowhunter to Coney Island.”</p><p>It's Jace's birthday tomorrow, and Simon wants to celebrate. Too bad Hell has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Perfect Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starry_nights88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starry_nights88/gifts).



> I will offer no excuses; this has taken me far, far too long, and I can only offer a million and one apologies. You guys have been beyond incredible, with all your lovely messages and humbling support, and far more patience than I deserved. I love EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU. Thank you so, so so much for sticking with me, and with Runed. I hope CoD can be half of what you guys deserve <3
> 
> This fic is not actually complete yet, but bluntly, I no longer feel justified in making you wait any longer to read it. It will be between 3-5 chapters, I think, and I will post them as I finish them.
> 
> With all the love in the world, here is CoD's first chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it <3

“Rachiel!”-“Simiel!”- _“Kabshiel!”_ - _“Sandalphon!”_

The seraph blades leapt forward in dazzling blazes of ice and fire and their wielders followed them, exploding into motion: one-two-three-four, bodies loose and muscles supple and the room instantly full of the sound of crashing crystal, c _rash-crash-clang-chime,_ trailing tails of light like diamond comets. Up-and-down strikes, both arms moving independently, light feet, swaying-leaping-stepping, step _in_ and step _out_ –

Simon grinned at Jace over their swords and Jace grinned back, dancing like the wind around Simon’s strikes; _one-two-three-four_ , high-and-low, attention split between Rachiel and Kabshiel and Jace’s gold-gold eyes –

Kabshiel hooked around Simiel and jerked, jolting Simon’s arm, and in a flash Jace’s elbow glanced off his throat. “Watch your guard!” Jace ordered, even as his eyes shone with amusement and Rachiel was already swiping in at Simon’s stomach and Sandalphon met it, parried, step back and dart and slash out with Simiel, snake Sandalphon in and glance off Kabshiel and again, again, again.

_One –_

_Two –_

_Three –_

_Four!_

Suddenly both Kabshiel and Rachiel were coming for him and Simon had a fraction of an instant to react, _thinking takes too long so don’t think just **react** _ and he fell away from the blades, dropping into the backwards roll he’d been practising for the last week. The world spun dizzyingly but he came out of it on his feet, clumsily but in time to parry Jace’s next strike and slash Simiel for Jace’s throat, kicking out to drive Jace back and give himself some space to manoeuvre.

Jace didn’t give it to him; he slid away from Simon’s kick and shoved inside Simon’s guard like a tidal wave, shoulder to the chest and Simon went flying back. Jace’s ankle hooked around his and sent him to the floor, but Simon tucked in and rolled again, rolled with his fall and swung back up onto his feet and “be a jack-in-the-box, Simon!”

“You and your – damn – instructions!” Simon laughed breathlessly, swinging away from Rachiel; a jack-in-the-box, really? He spun Sandalphon in his grip and punched his fist into Jace’s sternum, jerked his knee up between Jace’s thighs as the blond’s breath _whooshed_ out but didn’t connect; Jace leapt back and smirked at him.

“Now, _that_ wasn’t very friendly,” he purred. Simon’s breath caught at the heat in his eyes and Rachiel came at him like a bolt of crystal lightning and suddenly it was a storm, Jace’s blows raining down like hail and thunder and it was all Simon could do to hold them off. His arms trembled with the strain as Jace’s blows hammered into Simiel and Sandalphon, occasionally biting down against Simon’s vambraces with a strength that made the bones in his forearms vibrate and hum. There was no chance to strike back; in mere seconds Jace had reduced him to the defensive, driving him back and back as surely as a glacier sweeping out over the earth. It was all Simon could do to parry the blond’s seraph swords, never mind even think about getting back on the offensive.

“You can do better than this,” Jace murmured, and it should have been impossible to hear him over the cymbal-sound of their blades crashing together but Simon would have heard Jace’s whisper in a crowd of roaring soccer fans. “Come on, _aikane_ , show me!”

_The thick, bone-and-meat sensation of driving Simiel through a man’s neck..._

Simon’s stomach heaved – and just like that, his focus shattered. He missed Jace’s next attack and might have lost his own head if Jace hadn’t turned Kabshiel at the last moment, so that it was the flat of the blade and not the edge that grazed Simon’s throat. Simiel locked to Simon’s fingers but Sandalphon clattered to the floor and abruptly the wall was against his back, hard and unyielding and Jace was there, pinning him to it, chest to chest and hip to hip and Kabshiel cool against his neck.

Rachiel’s point hovered over Simon’s heart.

Jace’s breath caressed Simon’s lips. Unlike Simon, he wasn’t panting. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Simon swallowed. The motion pressed his Adam’s apple against Kabshiel. “You do have a knife to my throat,” he pointed out. His voice was hoarse.

Jace grinned, and kissed him without pulling the blade away. The _adamas_ was cold, and his tongue was warm as it traced Simon’s lower lip.

Simon felt the shiver run down his spine like icewater.

When Jace pulled away again, he took the knife with him, and Simon surprised himself by mourning the loss.

“What’s wrong?” Jace asked softly.

His gaze seared, too piercing, seeing too much, and Simon let his eyes fall away from it, staring at where Sandalphon lay on the wooden floor. Distantly, he was annoyed with himself for once again dropping the unbonded blade. It shouldn’t be only Simiel’s magic that kept his weapon in his hand.

“Simon.” Jace’s hand lightly cupped Simon’s jaw, tipping his face up to Jace’s. “Talk to me.”

 _Talk to me._ For a moment the entreaty almost made Simon laugh. Talk? There were a dozen different conversations the two of them needed to have; topics that were too raw and new to touch, or too dangerous, or too uncertain. They needed to talk about the past they should have shared and the future they hoped to have together; about Jocelyn and Luke and what Valentine’s next move would be; what to tell Clary and Alec and Izzy about their relationship, and what to hide. Which one did Jace want to tackle first?

But even as he thought it, Simon knew it was a facetious question. He knew exactly what Jace meant.

“I don’t feel like I can fight anymore,” he said finally. The words felt incredibly inadequate, completely failing to embody everything he meant to convey.

“What?” Confusion swept across Jace’s features. “I know you’ve been struggling the last few days, but you’ve only just begun training. It doesn’t mean you should stop.”

“I don’t want to stop because I’m struggling, I’m struggling because I want to stop,” Simon corrected, more sharply than he’d meant.

He had first-hand experience of Jace’s dazzling intelligence, but it didn’t surprise him to see only incomprehension on his _aikane_ ’s face now. The idea of not wanting to fight was probably completely alien to a Shadowhunter. They were born and raised to it. _‘We have been for a thousand years.’_

“I’ve seen you when you’re not struggling, Simon. When you first started – remember?” Jace’s voice softened, shockingly gentle. This was all so new still – Jace’s capacity for tenderness kept taking Simon by surprise, taking his breath away. He still couldn’t believe he’d been granted the cipher to Jace’s heart, the key that unlocked that cool, sharp exterior to reveal the hidden treasure within. A deeper wealth of passion and gentleness Simon could not imagine, especially since it was so at odds with Jace’s outward self. Jace didn’t look like someone who could bring tears to your eyes with a single kiss, with the intensity of emotion he could put into it; he didn’t seem the type for deep emotions at all, a silver-tongued trickster wielding blades like a whirlwind.

It was only a mask, though. Only a facade, and the beauty of what lay behind it was breathtaking, and blinding, and secret. Simon didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling privileged to see it, or being humbled – and amazed – that it was for him.

“When you stopped thinking? You were a natural.” A pause. “You were beautiful.”

Simon looked away again, trying to find the words – and the grit to speak them aloud. _‘You were beautiful.’_ Jace had said it then, and said it again now, and it made something sick and ashamed and guilty wind like a snake through Simon’s gut. Because surely nothing could be further from the truth.

“I can’t get Renwicks out of my head,” he said finally, avoiding Jace’s eyes. “What I did that night...” The words – the memories – were like stones. “There was nothing beautiful about it, Jace.”

“I disagree.” Simon’s head jerked up, shocked disbelief whiting him out for a breath. Nothing in Jace’s expression suggested that he didn’t mean what he’d said. “You were incredible that night. You stood against a fully-trained adult Shadowhunter without balking – outsmarted him, even, switching the cards like that.” His voice was even; proud, but something in it hinted at how difficult it must be for him, to talk about Valentine even so obliquely. “What about that would make you want to stop training?”

Simon stared at Jace incredulously. Slowly, unbelievably, it dawned on him: Jace didn’t know.

He _didn’t know_.

It had been such a huge – a huge – such a huge _moment_ , act, event, _incident_ , whatever you wanted to call it, for Simon, that it had never occurred to him that anyone could be unaware of it. It had changed his world completely: how could anyone possibly not know that he’d...? And yet, how could Jace know? Who would have told him? Not Luke, horrifically awkward and straining to be polite, unable to meet Jace’s eyes and eager to get out of his presence. Not Clary, who’d been hurt and then so busy soothing Simon’s nightmares, the only one who could understand. And not Simon, who had no idea how to even begin whittling down the horror and confusion and sin into something that could be spoken aloud – and who had had no idea that it was necessary, who hadn’t known that Jace was innocently ignorant of the –

The –

Simon had no idea how to say it.

 _I. Killed. Someone._ Three words. Alone, separate, they had meaning and sense, but they refused to fit together in his mouth. Puzzle pieces of broken glass.

“Simon?” Jace frowned, concerned. “What is it?”

Simon swallowed hard. “I... When I was looking for you at Renwicks – before I found you...” He stared at Jace’s cheek instead of meeting his gaze. “I lost it, Jace. Completely. I wasn’t...me, anymore.” He shook his head, frustrated with his own verbal clumsiness. “Remember how I asked you if we were monsters? The second time we sparred? You said we weren’t, but I – ” _am_ “ – was, Jace. That night I _was_.”

Jace tried to speak, but Simon barrelled over him. It felt like lancing a wound, saying all this: blood and pus rushing free. “Something happened when Hodge gave you to Valentine – to me, in my head or – I don’t _know_ , I can’t explain it. Something just snapped – no, before that, with Abbadon – fucking Time Lords, I don’t _know!”_ He was shouting, didn’t know how to stop. All the terror he’d been keeping to himself, wrestling with – trying to understand it, make sense of it, what he’d felt, said, _done_ – “The dream – I was _dead_ , Jace, you know I was, and I dreamed of an angel and then there was _this,_ ” he grabbed his forearm to illustrate, knowing Jace didn’t need to see the rune there after all the times he’d touched it, kissed it, “on my arm when I woke up and I could speak Enochian like a freaking native – I _knew_ things, things about Hodge and – and then, watching Valentine take you away, I just lost it. I don’t know how to – I broke the rune cuffs Hodge put on me, I broke out of the cage he put around me – just by _wanting_ them to break – you can’t tell me that’s normal. Even for us.”

He felt shaken all over again by the memories crashing over him like an avalanche. “And at Renwicks – on the way there – I wasn’t me. I just – I wasn’t, I was so _cold_ , nothing mattered except getting you back. Do you understand? _Nothing_. The werewolves Luke brought to help get you out – so many of them died, and I didn’t even notice. And when we – we – Clary and I, we ran into one of Valentine’s guys – one of the ones we saw at Dorothea’s, do you remember? I thought – ” The shaken, jangly feeling infected his voice, made it tremble. “I thought he’d killed your dad, and I – _fuck._ ” He didn’t want to say it, didn’t know _how._ “I tortured him. It was nothing, it was so _easy_ – he couldn’t touch me – I – fuck, Jace, I – I cut his head off. Like – I can’t e-even – and it f-felt – ” _Better than sex, better than anything, the best rush in the_ world – “I liked it. I fucking _liked it_. He begged for his life and I just _laughed_.”

Jace said nothing. Simon’s eyes burned, and he couldn’t – didn’t dare – meet Jace’s.

“Alright?” he managed, his voice thick. “That’s why I d-don’t want to fucking fight anymore. Because there’s something seriously fucking wrong with me, and I don’t – I don’t want to be that, I don’t _ever_ want to be that again.”

_‘I do not know what he did to you, Simon. But I am sorry for it.’_

It kept him up at nights. What had Valentine done to him? What kind of monster had he made Simon, what had he turned him into? Or what if Simon was wrong – what if Valentine had done nothing, and Simon just _was_ this way, not because of some fucked-up magic but because he just – was?

_‘The only thing wrong with him is you!’_

Simon couldn’t work out which was worse.

His eyes were wet, and he ducked his head angrily as they spilled over. He reached up to wipe them quickly away – but Jace was there first, cupping Simon’s face, his thumbs a pair of soft sweeps beneath Simon’s eyes, catching every tear.

“You are _not_ a monster,” Jace said firmly, and there was so much faith in his voice, so much unwavering surety, that Simon heard himself sob, felt it like ice breaking in his chest. “You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met – you’re my _aikane_ , and you’re brave and smart and completely _insane_ ,” so much warmth, so much l-l-l – so much devotion, Christ, Simon wasn’t worthy of so much faith, it _hurt,_ “but in a good way, you idiot. There is nothing wrong with you. _Nothing.”_

“Then why am I like this?” A hoarse plea for an answer; he couldn’t – he didn’t want to cry but his whole body burned for it, for the relief of it, wanted to just break down and purge himself of poison. _As if it could be that easy, that simple to get rid of this_ thing _in me, make myself clean –_ “Why can I – you saw what I did to Valentine, freezing him like that. I broke the Portal, I have runes showing up on my skin without a stele – I _died_ , Jace! I died and came back, and I don’t – I don’t know if I came back right.”

And there it was, forced out in a whisper. Because wasn’t it true? He’d gone vicious and elemental in his battle-trance before that, but it hadn’t been out of control, hadn’t taken him over until after his dream of the angel. Maybe whatever Valentine had done _(if it_ was _Valentine, if he’d done anything at all, if it wasn’t just something twisted up and wrong in Simon)_ had been like a computer program, installed but inert until the computer _(his body, mind, soul?)_ was rebooted.

More like a virus than a program, Simon thought, sickened.

But Jace wasn’t having any of it. “Of course you did,” he said fiercely, as if daring the world to disagree with him, as if he could make it true by sheer force of will if he had to. “There is _nothing wrong with you._ ” He ran his fingertips over Simon’s face, over his wet cheeks, and Simon had to close his eyes again, had to suck in his breath for the sharp bolt of pain the tenderness caused. “Simon, you are _brand new_ to all this. What did you expect? That you’d be perfect from the first?” Jace smirked. “Not everyone can be like me.”

It choked a short laugh from Simon, and Jace’s grin softened.

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” he continued. “Do you think that none of us become overwhelmed by the battle-trance when we’re new to it? Or when we’re fighting to protect someone we – care about? We’re Shadowhunters. We feel things strongly. Sometimes it gets the better of us.”

He leaned in, and nudged Simon’s nose with his own, soft and affectionate. Simon’s breath caught at it. “As for your powers,” Jace murmured, “they only prove how extraordinary you are. Why should I be surprised by that? It shines out of you, Simon; it takes my breath away. Of course you can do things no one else can. You can do anything.”

The simple, casual certainty in Jace’s voice left Simon so breathless, so stunned, that he started when he suddenly felt Jace’s fingers lace with his. His heart was pounding.

“You’re gifted, _aikane_ ,” Jace whispered. “Not monstrous.” He brought their entwined hands together, and brushed his lips over Simon’s knuckles, over the Morgenstern ring.

“And you’re mine.” Jace’s gaze lifted and found Simon’s. It felt like a knife to the heart. “So you don’t need to be afraid. I swear it by the Angel Raziel and his blood in my veins: I will never let any darkness, in this or any world, take you away from me.”

 _Not even the darkness inside me?_ But seeing the unflinching pledge in Jace’s eyes, Simon felt the words die unspoken. He didn’t need to ask.

_Not even that._

“If I promise it’s not a distraction,” Simon whispered, “can I kiss you now?”

Jace grinned like the sun coming out, and his answer needed no words.

*

The vampire motorbike didn’t fly during the day, but it worked just fine on the ground. Simon closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against Jace’s shoulder as the blond wove in and out of the Brooklyn traffic, deft as a chrome-streaked wind. There was still a tightness in Simon’s gut whenever he got on the bike; the disastrous finale of the escape from the Dumort rang in his mind like a struck bell. It was hard to forget the agony of his leg being shredded against the tarmac – but having Jace’s toned abdomen under his hands made him forget just about everything, so it worked out pretty well.

Sometimes he caught himself wishing that Jace would just keep driving, on and on until they left New York behind them. They could be hunters like the Winchesters, moving from town to town slaying monsters, staying in motels with crappy water pressure but no one to judge them. No one who would look at them and think _brothers_.

He pushed the thought away firmly. It was just a fantasy. Jace was eighteen tomorrow, but Simon wouldn’t be for another year. Their mom was in hospital, comatose and showing no signs of recovery. Simon couldn’t imagine leaving Clary and knew Jace would never walk away from Alec and Izzy. And that was without all the practical considerations, like how they would earn money. He was pretty sure that hustling pool was not one of Jace’s many talents.

They pulled up in front of the club with a soft rumble.

“Where is everyone?” Jace asked, glancing up and down at the mostly empty street. “Shouldn’t they be here to hear you sing?” He sounded ever so slightly scandalised.

Warmed, and trying not to laugh, Simon playfully ruffled Jace’s hair. _“Aw_ , aren’t you _sweet?”_ He dismounted, ducking Jace’s playful revenge-swipe. “We’re not performing today, snugglemuffin, so no, there’s no fans lining the streets just now. It’s just that Plan B is bigger than anywhere else we’ve played, so we asked if we could come and try out the space before the big night next week. Miracle of miracles, we got a stamp of approval, and here we are.” He grinned. “So there’s no need to get all protective.”

Jace muttered something that sounded like uncomplimentary Latin, but he was trying not to smile. He sketched a quick sigil on the bike with his stele – Simon saw the curving twist of it and heard a warning, like a bell and a burn – and followed Simon inside.

Going straight from sparring with magical crystal swords to band practise should have felt stranger than it did, Simon thought. Moving back and forth between the Shadow World and the human one ought to be dizzying, but it wasn’t; it felt entirely natural to wear his Shadowhunter belt with a pair of mundane jeans, the seraph blades hidden in their inconspicuous sheaths sharing space with a spare guitar pick. Perfectly _normal_ , to reach for the mike with an arm emblazoned with an angel’s rune; to groan at Eric’s terrible jokes while Jace set up watch in an empty corner, his gold eyes gleaming from the shadows.

Simon sent him a smile, and started singing.

*

The check didn’t take long. Just under an hour later the boys were packing up, having satisfied themselves as to the state of the acoustics, when the manager – an African-American woman who’d introduced herself as Meryl – asked them into her office to go over the details. Simon knew that some of the bigger venues had performers sign contracts, but Meryl didn’t present one, only wanted to know about lights and transport and times, taking careful notes in a small red book on her desk.

“All right,” she said finally, closing her book, “I think that’s – ” She paused. “Is one of your group still out there?”

It only took a beat for Simon to hear it too: somebody singing out in the main room. Sensibly for a club manager, Meryl had her office pretty soundproofed, which muffled the song – and yet Simon was pretty damn sure he recognised that tune.

He wasn’t the only one. “Isn’t that Queen?” Matt frowned.

“But there’s no one – ” Realisation struck like a cannonball. “Oh holy Batman.”

 _You’ve got_ _to be kidding me!_

Simon bolted out of the office, sure that he had to be wrong – but the moment he could hear the singer clearly, he knew he wasn’t. A certainty only confirmed when the stage came into sight and he saw who was standing there.

“Who the hell is that?” Eric demanded, coming up beside Simon. “And why is he messing with our gear?!”

It was Jace onstage. Jace in jeans and a biker jacket with his hands cradling the mike; but even more unbelievable were the words crooning from his lips, smooth and very nearly perfect. Even without the back-up of any instruments behind him, he sounded amazing, his voice rising and falling with the iconic lyrics –

 

_“Mama, ooh,_  
_Didn’t mean to make you cry,_  
_If I’m not back again this time tomorrow,_  
_Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really mat~ters...”_

 

He saw Simon. Simon _knew_ he did; the blond bastard winked at him as he slid neatly from one verse into the next, clearly revelling in the attention. By now the rest of Lint had come out to stare, and Meryl was trying to ask who the strange newcomer was, but Simon couldn’t take his eyes away. Not just any song, but _Queen_ – as if Jace wasn’t already perfect enough –

_“Too late~, my time has come,_  
_Sends shivers down my spine –_  
_Body’s aching all the time._  
_Goodbye~, everybody,_  
_I’ve got to go,_  
_Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth~.”_

 

“Who cares?” That was Kirk, staring wide-eyed. “How do we convince him to sing with us?”

But Jace, appropriately, stopped there. Of course he did, Simon thought, dazed; much further and the song required back-up singers... Jace righted the microphone and moved away from it, easy and careless as if he were perfectly at home with the equipment, with being up on a stage. He walked to the edge and braced to jump down, without a word –

“Oh no you don’t.” Kirk – quiet, laid-back Kirk – stepped forward and jabbed a finger towards Jace. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not going anywhere.”

One golden eyebrow rose, and Jace’s lips curved with feline amusement. “I beg your pardon?”

“Not until you’ve run through the whole song with us.”

 _“What?”_ Eric and Matt cried in unison.

Jace flicked a glance at Simon, just a hint of a question in his eyes.

“Hell yes,” Simon said without thinking. Without _needing_ to think. Singing with Jace – playing with him – hearing that voice again – he felt himself grinning, wide and exhilarated. “Let’s do it.”

“Excuse me?”

Belatedly remembering the manger, Simon turned to Meryl with a sheepish smile. “If you don’t mind, Meryl?”

The club manager was frowning with unsubtle disapproval. “Is this young man with your band?”

“Yep,” Simon lied, before Eric could contradict him. “We didn’t think he could make it today, but I guess his schedule cleared up.”

Matt was gaping at him, but Jace’s smile sweetened into something angelic. “Your pardon for the dramatic entrance, ma’am. I didn’t want to disturb your meeting, but I couldn’t quite resist trying out this amazing space.” He gestured to their surroundings, with its high ceilings and hard walls that so beautifully reflected a singer’s voice.

“Oh...well...” Slightly flustered now – and who wouldn’t be, with Jace’s _butter-wouldn’t-melt_ smile directed at them? – Meryl tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I suppose that’s understandable.” She checked the planner on her phone. “I have suppliers coming in an hour, but you’re free to stay around until then, if you need some more practise.”

“No –” Eric began, but Simon cut over him.

“No thank you, we won’t need the full hour. Maybe just half that.” He gave Meryl his own smile. “And then we’ll be out of your hair till next week.”

“Sounds great.” She snapped her phone shut. “You boys have fun.”

“What the hell, Simon?” Eric demanded when she was gone. “Are you nuts? Who is this guy? Do you know him?”

“As it happens, yes, I do.” Simon grinned. “And so do you. Remember? He came backstage that night at Vatican.”

“I don’t care if he’s the Prince of Wales,” Kirk declared. “We’re running through the whole of _Rhapsody_ right here, right now, with blondie – ”

“I usually go by Jace, not ‘blondie’,” Jace commented to no one in particular.

“ – with Jace singing lead,” Kirk finished. “Yes? Yes? All right then. Chop chop, losers.”

“When did Kirk and Clary switch bodies?” Matt muttered, and Simon tried not to laugh as he took the steps two at a time up onto the stage.

“How on earth do you know that song?” he demanded of Jace, trying and failing to keep the excitement out of his voice. Trying, and failing, to keep his stomach from flipping over when Jace gave him a slow, heated smirk.

“I may have stolen your music box once or twice,” he murmured, keeping his voice low as the rest of Millennium Lint settled with their instruments – Eric still grumbling not-quite under his breath. “Mundane music is very...different to what I’m used to.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” What did Nephilim music sound like? Did they play it with instruments Simon would recognise? He was just about to ask when the first part of Jace’s confession struck him. “My _music box?”_

“This thing.” With all the skill of Locke Lamora, Jace produced Simon’s iPod from – where, the ether? The flick of Jace’s wrist was too quick, too smooth, for Simon to see whether his lover had pulled the machine from his own pocket or from Simon’s. “Your music box.”

“You – ” Jace grinned wickedly as Simon spluttered. “You _know_ it’s not called a music box! You’re just doing this to screw with me – ”

“It’s a box that plays music,” Jace said sweetly, “isn’t it?”

_“You – !”_

“Can you two lovebirds shut it so we can get this over with?” Eric barked at them.

Simon whipped his head around, stunned – how did Eric know he and Jace were together? – but Jace only calmly reached for the microphone again, smug as a cat with one paw in the cream.

“Of course,” he purred. His eyes met Simon’s, and the self-satisfied, molten gleam in them dripped gold down Simon’s throat. “Are you singing with me, Simon?”

Simon swallowed hard. “No, I’ll just – I’ll take guitar.”

“From the top,” Kirk ordered, as Simon moved back and picked up his guitar. “Jace sings lead, the rest of us take the back-up. Everybody ready? On three. One – two – _three!”_

*

Simon’s fingers kept slipping and twanging out the wrong notes, and it was all. Jace’s. Fault.

Holy hells, he was more devastating than a category five kaiju. For someone who’d lived a life invisible to normal humans, Jace had no problems working a performance. Even standing behind him, Simon couldn’t miss that Jace was _killing_ the song – and Christ on a cracker, it should be _illegal_ to look that good in jeans. Every time the blond swayed forward with the mike to howl out a lyric Simon’s eyes just _naturally_ dropped to that ass – and not even Aziraphale could have remained focused with that view on offer.

And Jace’s voice – oh, it shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise. They had the same genes, didn’t they? Why shouldn’t Jace have a great voice? True, it was untrained, and _Rhapsody_ wasn’t a beginner’s song – Jace couldn’t hit all of the high notes, couldn’t quite make his voice do everything it needed to, but it didn’t seem to matter. Jace was a born performer, unabashedly flaunting his body through the music, enough that Simon was sure the Shadowhunter would have a legion of fangirls if he ever did decide to join Lint – and Jace knew it too, damn him. He was clearly enjoying himself; Simon caught flashes of his grin as his _aikane_ prowled across the centre stage, giving it his all even if the high notes were just a little beyond his reach – and his all was all they needed; the charisma, the electric, pulsing power that spooled out from every word to sweep an audience away – sweep _Simon_ away, with music to make your blood pound and spill up and out of your mouth in roaring light –

 _“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!”_ The boys roared, and Simon felt it in his chest, a raging fire –

“Oh, mama mia, mama mia – !” Jace growled.

_“Mama mia, let me go!_

_“Be-elzebub has a devil-put-aside for meee,_

_“For meee,_

_“For meeeeeee!”_

Guitar – and Simon’s fingers flew, the clumsiness gone, dancing over the strings as Jace danced around the mike, laughter weaving in and out of the notes because fuck, this was fun, blinding and bright –

 _“So you thought you can stone me and spit in my eyeeee?”_ Jace howled. “ _So you think you can love me and leave me to dieee?_

_“Oh, baby, can’t do this to me baby!_

_I just gotta get out, just gotta get right-out-of he-re!”_

And Simon could imagine it so easily – the club packed, the lights beaming down, the audience shrieking approval – this, now, this was just improv, this was wild and manic and each of them, Matt-Kirk-Eric-Simon-Jace, all of them just trying to keep up with each other, with a song they hadn’t prepped for and a singer they weren’t used to and it was _insane_ , a handful of minutes and the sweat was pouring down, Simon and Matt skidding in with the bass and electric and Kirk hitting his keys like he was waging a war, Eric’s cymbals the thunder and all of them weaving a web of lightning, crackling-burning- _searing_ –

But it had to slow eventually. They dropped out, one by one, until it was Jace left alone with Matt, Simon welcoming the chance to breathe as his _aikane_ softened his voice, just a little. Was he grateful too, now that the hardest part of the song was over?

 _“Nothing really matters,”_ Jace crooned,

_“Anyone can see, Nothing really matters... Nothing really matters,_

_To meeeee...”_

 

And. Silence.

If anyone wanted to drop a pin, now was the time to do it.

After a moment, Jace turned around to face Simon and the band. “Well?” His voice was a little hoarsened.

“You’re kidding, right?” Matt looked as if he’d been smacked with a wet fish – but enjoyed it. “That – that was – ”

“You’re hired,” Eric said instantly. “So hired. You were hired _yesterday.”_

“Seconded!” Kirk crowed.

But Jace only had eyes for Simon. Aurelian and intent, intense, darkened to bronze by the exertion and something that was just for Simon alone.

Simon swallowed to wet his dry mouth. “You were amazing,” he said softly.

Jace’s smile was a dagger as he slid the microphone back into its stand, as smoothly as resheathing a knife. Smug. That was the word, and Simon wanted to bite the curve of his mouth and taste that honey-and-spice arrogance, feel it bleed all over his tongue and swallow it down, down and down. Wanted those hands that handled a mike like a weapon on his own body, strong and hard and holding him.

Preferably against a wall, or down on their bed.

“I’m afraid I’m not looking for a job just now,” Jace said idly, his gaze still fixed on Simon. “But I’ll bear it in mind, if I’m ever looking for work. This was...interesting.” To Simon: “Shall we go?”

“Yeah. Yes. Just a sec.” His brain buzzing with want and barely-suppressed laughter, Simon swung the strap of his bass over his head and set it carefully down. “You can take this back, right, Eric?”

“You – what – ”

Simon beamed at him. “Thanks! I’ll catch you guys later, all right? Text me.”

“But – but –!”

Jace leapt down from the stage, arms outstretched like wings. Without thought Simon followed him, running up to the edge and leaping into freefall, quick and easy as a gazelle, a panther, the arc of falling water.

It was nothing. A five foot drop. But for a second – a fraction of an instant – he was weightless, and flying, and laughing.

And then he landed, a hair behind Jace, and the two of them were gone even as Eric, somewhere behind them, demanded, “The fuck just happened?!”

*

They didn’t need words. The moment they were outside beneath the sunlight the Nephilim and the singer _(which is which who is who who knows who cares)_ stumbled into a side-alley with the same wordless telepathy of a wolf pack on the hunt, seeking shadow, skin, sex; Simon hooked his ankle around Jace’s and Jace let him, cupped Simon’s skull before it could hit the brick wall and fell against him mouth to mouth, fell like a star, like Lucifer, like something dragged down bloody. Weight to weight and chest to chest; Simon tore open Jace’s jacket and hunted for his hips, tasted Jace’s low sound of hunger and drank it down, swallowed the cardamom-chocolate and Jace’s hand slid down, abandoned Simon’s head and found his waist, his hipbones that slotted against Jace’s palms so perfectly, interlocking, made to fit. The _click_ of it seared through Simon’s blood and sang counterpoint to the song still rushing through his veins, pulsing and pounding fit to shake the earth beneath them and make the trashcans rattle, but he knew they could fit even better together, even more closely. He felt the ache, felt Jace’s, slipped his hands under Jace’s shirt and traced desire like a rune over his skin, feeling him tremble, tasting his groan. It wasn’t enough, he wanted more, both of them breathing hard as if running, singing, snatching air between the lines of a verse, between kisses, lips on lips and on jaw, throat, the curve of a shoulder. Jace’s touch was a hymn and a battle-cry, as if they had seconds left to live and this was his final act of worship; every brush of teeth a prayer, every caress of his hands dedicating Simon’s body to something holy, claiming and celebrating and divine bliss and Simon _couldn’t stand it_. Jace pushed and pinned him to the wall and Simon’s hips bucked, gasping, frantic for friction, catching fire under his _aikane_ ’s hands, oh God yes _please –_

He bit Jace’s lip when the kisses came back to his mouth, clawing at Jace’s spine, _closer closer_ , come on, drunk on it, shaking, the memory of Jace singing lashing through him white and bright; Jace’s wicked fingers around the microphone, lips parted, sweat beading his forehead, spine a bow as he curved into the song –

 _“Jace,”_ he hissed, a whip slicing air; Jace bit him, a sharp crush of teeth and slapped his palm over Simon’s mouth to muffle Simon’s yell, startled-shocked-holy-fuck, do-that-again, again-again, hands everywhere, nails raking over Jace’s scars and Jace’s fingers warm and dry against his lips and there was something, something liquid and hot in the pit of his stomach in being gagged, pinned in place with Jace’s mouth on him, the hard heat of Jace’s cock grinding against his.

Jace let his hand fall, skimming down Simon’s mouth and chin and neck: he nuzzled Simon’s ear, panting the way he never did when they sparred. “We should – ”

“Not stop,” Simon gasped. He spread his legs against the brick and tugged, wrenching Jace that fraction closer. They both groaned. “Don’t – ”

“Then what?” Hoarse, hands greedily devouring every inch of Simon they could reach –

“Here?” Simon suggested breathlessly. He rocked his hips deliberately, rubbing his face against Jace’s shoulder, breathing in sweat and leather and sex, drinking in the _sounds_ – “Couldn’t we – ?”

 _“Here?”_ Incredulous – but when Simon raised his head Jace’s eyes were bronzed, wild and hungry, and something deep and vital in Simon shivered, loving it, revelling in the almost predatory gleam in the gold.

“Here,” he purred. Fisting his hands in Jace’s shirt, he ran his tongue over the blond’s lip – and pushed his thigh between Jace’s legs, a long, slow, deliberate stroke of pressure. “Why not?” he murmured over Jace’s moan. “Don’t you want to _fuck me_ , Jace?”

Jace swallowed the end of his name – devoured it, _taking_ Simon’s lips as if he meant to eat Simon alive and Simon’s fingers were in Jace’s hair, fisted, tearing, trembling, exulting, sucking on the tongue fucking his mouth. Hands dropped, finding buttons, zippers, burning-burning and Simon wanted to laugh and wanted to crow but he groaned instead, unable to believe he was doing this and utterly unable to stop. He’d never done anything like this but he didn’t care, not with Jace’s skin under his hands and the promise in his eyes like molten metal, forging, piercing –

“Do you – ?” Jace asked, and “Yes, _yes,”_ Simon answered, yes to everything – _do you want_ and _do you have_ , the two most important questions, the only ones that mattered, and Jace kissed him hard before pulling back a breathless step or two.

He had his stele out before Simon could ask what he was doing, and for an instant Simon thought of all the Harry Potter fanfictions where they had spells for lube, wondered if there was a rune – but no, Jace sketched a quick knot of blackness on the brick wall beside them and Simon’s lips felt bruised, he caught the sound of whispers and velvet susurrations before Jace was back on him, yes, right where he belonged, “Just a glamour,” panted, kissing, tearing Jace’s jacket off his shoulders and onto the ground just because – “so no one will see – ”

“Yes,” Simon breathed, and there, no more words, no more talking – more kissing instead, deep and wet and it was so hard to breathe, impatiently fighting with the button on his jeans until it _finally_ came free, and then the Shadowhunter belt, pulled loose and he was turning around, holy hells, leaning his forehead against the wall and trying to stay standing as Jace pushed his trousers down. Fuck, the touch of summer air on his bare skin, they were _outside_ and he had no idea how well the glamour worked, if it would cover the _sound_ but gods he didn’t care, spreading his legs with his jeans around his knees and fighting not to whimper at the first brush of Jace’s fingers.

“Boy scout,” he whispered, grinning, because the fingers were slick and Simon wasn’t the only one carrying lube in his pockets these days, but then they slid in and he gasped and Jace looped an arm around his waist, purring like a lion as Simon’s legs went weak. “Shadowhunter,” he corrected smugly, and Simon couldn’t even argue the point, not with the tangled whines spilling out of his throat, the heated-honey craving spilling beneath his skin. Fuck, _fuck_ , they were _outside_ , and it was hard to believe that anyone passing by wouldn’t see, see him with his face against the wall and Jace’s fingers opening him up, pushing in and crooking because it hadn’t taken him long at all to discover what the prostate was for and Simon gasped, rocking his hips back to get Jace right where he wanted him, right where he _needed_ him –

“Now?” Jace breathed, and _“Now,”_ Simon demanded, pleaded, scrambling a condom from his pocket and shoving it back to his _aikane_. He folded his arms between his forehead and the wall, panting, wanting, listening to the rustle of foil that seemed to roar in his ears. And then Jace’s hand was on his hip, tugging gently, his sticky-slick fingertips brushing the jut of Simon’s hipbone while his other hand held him open, proprietary and urgent and Simon was burning-burning-burning, the longing a physical, empty ache that turned sharp and desperate at the touch of oily latex –

And then the slow, thick glide of flesh and fullness, the angle unfamiliar and almost-awkward but still so good, too good, obscene; with his legs hobbled by his jeans everything was tighter, the burn brighter and sharper as Jace slid home in him. Simon wanted to rake his nails through skin and anoint them with someone’s blood, Jace’s blood, but there was no way to reach, no way to do anything but squirm and moan, feeling Jace come to rest against the back of Simon’s thighs, feeling him tremble with the intensity. “Simon,” he whispered, nuzzling the back of Simon’s neck, “By the Angel, _Simon.”_

Simon’s lips shaped Jace’s name soundlessly, over and over as he tilted his spine and pushed back into it, into the pressure, into the heat of Jace’s skin like a fire against his. He felt branded by it, burnt and claimed and his own skin felt too tight, about to burst, about to split at the seams with wave after wave of light waiting to spill out and blind –

He shut his eyes tightly, blocking out the brick in front of his face and groaning, drawn out and low as Jace moved. Yes, yes, _fuck_ , he wanted something to touch, something to hold, his cock ached like a wound between his legs but he left his hands where they were, somehow, somewhy, craving it, craving _this_ and his lips parted, breathless and starving and his teeth throbbed in his mouth, he couldn’t stop trembling. Jace thrust, again and again, not clumsy in the least and the stretch made Simon want to howl and claw something, made him pant; his body moved with Jace of its own accord, sleek and smooth like an animal, a battle, trance – glorying in it, in the hot puff of Jace panting against the back of his neck and the caress of callused hands moving up under his shirt, the slap of flesh and it drove everything else away, everything that wasn’t skin and sweat and sex. _Jace,_ and the unvoiced howl became a breathless laugh flooding through his veins, sharp and glittering and fierce until his every artery pulsated with it and it was so _easy_ , so _right,_ he was turning into glass and that glass was filled with red and blue fire –

And if the glass broke –

Simon purred, lowered an arm to hook it back around Jace’s neck. “Harder,” he ordered, and the voice was only barely his, husky and decadent, but he tugged and Jace obeyed and Simon sighed with pleasure, tilted his head back and ran his fingers through Jace’s hair; _mine, you’re_ _mine_. Jace kissed his neck and each kiss felt like a _yes_ , a promise; Simon tilted his head and let the blond litter his throat with moan-edged oaths, something like triumph and something like hunger beating in his chest like a heart. Restless, electric, _harder_ , snapping his hips to fuck himself on Jace demandingly and Jace’s rhythm stuttered, he gasped against Simon’s neck like a man drowning and it was so good but not enough, Simon wanted to break, wanted _out_ , wanted his glass skin pounded to dust and “break me, Jace, break me, _break me_ – ”

“Simon – ?” Confused, breathless, hesitating, and no, fuck, not _now_ ; Simon swallowed a scream of frustration and hissed through his teeth, grabbed Jace’s hair and pushed his mouth against the curve of Simon’s shoulder, just where it met his neck, “bite me,” he snarled, “fucking _hurt me,”_ driving his hole over Jace’s cock, come on, harder-harder so _close_ the glass was cracking and Jace –

His teeth sank into the base of Simon’s neck like a bear-trap of blunt pearl and his hand clamped over Simon’s mouth, choking Simon’s quiet scream and oh God, oh-holy-fucking-Christ, Simon’s stomach knotted with bone-melting bliss and he _wailed_ against Jace’s fingers, felt his nails catch against brick as he scrabbled at the wall like an animal, fucking and gasping and spurting all over the wall in long, helpless jerks. Untouched, and Jace fucked him through it, rougher and sweeter and the _burn_ of it, the sweet stinging _burn_ –

Jace groaned, quietly, and Simon felt him come – felt the blond shudder against him, and that indescribable sensation of a condom being filled. It made him squirm, not entirely happily. The pit of his stomach was still molten, all golden liquid, and he found himself almost upset by the necessity of the latex, frustrated and shaky with the longing to be wet with Jace, to have him dripping down his thighs here in an alleyway like the worst kind of slut –

He shivered. Jace was nuzzling the bite he’d left, kissing it gently. The dull lightning of the touch made Simon’s toes curl.

“Are you all right?” Jace murmured.

He pulled his hand away; Simon kissed his fingertips before answering. “Yeah.” His voice was rough; the sound of it took him by surprise. “Very. _Yes.”_

But he wasn’t at all sure that was true. Beneath the honey-thick afterglow, Simon felt sick. He raised a hand to rub at the bite-mark, and felt it throb beneath his fingertips.

What had just happened?

*

“I can’t believe you brought me here,” Jace said, eying their surroundings with completely unreasonable distrust. “At least tell me there’s a host of demons masquerading as the frankly dubious-looking horses on the carousel, and we’re here to dispatch them before they eat any children?”

Simon side-eyed him. “You have a strange and suspicious mind.”

 _“I’m_ not the one who brought a Shadowhunter to Coney Island.”

This was true. Simon grinned. “Just don’t make me regret it,” he said cheerfully, “and I _might_ let you at the rogue Downworlder manning the cotton candy stand.”

“What? Where?” Jace’s head whipped around so fast, and there was a shining crystal dagger in his hand so suddenly, that Simon was torn between laughing and hyperventilating.

“Damn your duck pond, I was kidding!” Hastily, he reached across Jace’s body to force his hand down. “Put that away. We’re supposed to be having fun, not killing things.”

“Killing things _is_ fun.” But the knife disappeared as swiftly as it had appeared, and Simon could almost relax. “So if we’re not here to hunt, what _are_ we doing?”

“Psychopath,” Simon said fondly, slipping his arm through Jace’s. No one seemed to have noticed the very illegal knife made out of a substance not known to man, for which he was grateful. “We’re celebrating your birthday.”

“Which is not until tomorrow,” Jace pointed out, no longer at ease. As quickly and easily as he’d drawn his knife, the blond had tensed, his eyes glancing from side to side as if anticipating some kind of attack. Tension shimmered like heat in the air around him, and he felt rigid and unreal at Simon’s side, his arm like a block of wood in Simon’s.

“Other things are happening tomorrow,” Simon said lightly, even as his throat drew tight. “So I’m taking my chances with today.” What was wrong? Jace wasn’t _actually_ concerned that they were going to be attacked, was he? “Are you all right?” he blurted. Maybe this was a mistake – maybe they should just head home, do something else for the day...

Jace wouldn’t look at him.

“Jace? Please talk to me.”

Stiffly, Jace pulled away from him – drawing his arm free from Simon’s in the process. “We’re in _public_ ,” he said lowly, gaze fixed stubbornly on the ground.

It hit Simon then, with Jace avoiding his eyes and realisation a cluster of razors in his throat; a sick shock, and deep, shameful hurt. Rejection bitter and unreasonable and inarguable in the pit of his stomach.

And faster than thought, a dark flash of fanged fury, searing everything hot and burnt and blazing: _you’ll fuck me in an alley but you won’t hold my hand?_

It took effort not to spit the words out like bullets. For an instant he wanted to be cruel, to make Jace hurt like Simon hurt. But he caught himself, even if the bullet-words lodged in his throat, small and hard and cold.

He closed the distance between them and brushed the back of Jace’s hand with his own. “No one will care here,” he said softly.

Jace hesitated.

Simon said nothing else. He let his hand fall and started walking towards the Luna Park ticket booth, carefully not looking back. This wasn’t about him. It wasn’t even about _them._ Jace came from a very weird, fucked-up world, and whatever pain he caused Simon was unintentional, left over from the brainwashing he’d gone through since birth. So Simon wasn’t going to push it. He was going to be mature and sensible and ignore the pang of wormwood-bitter hurt, because this was no big deal, really.

He held Jace’s words from this morning around his heart like a shield as he joined the queue.

Most of the Coney Island amusement parks ran on cash, but Luna Park was different. Here, your money paid for credits, which were loaded onto a little plastic card. Swipe the card on a ride, and credits were deducted. When Simon had last been here with his mom, he’d been ten years old and had delighted in having his own ‘credit card’ just like a grown-up; he’d cherished the Technicolor thing for weeks afterwards. The memories made him smile to himself as he handed over his money, but as much as he wanted to see Jace with one of the cards he bought them a pair of wristbands instead. Just as brightly coloured, they granted unlimited access to any ride for four hours. For $30 each, that seemed like a steal.

Jace was still standing where Simon had left him.

“This is yours,” Simon told him, fastening his own around his wrist.

Jace took it dubiously, and Simon looked away as the blond tied the bracelet in place. Taking a chance on today seemed to have paid off. The sky was bright and clear, sunlight spread across it like honey on bread – anathema to any demon – but between August drawing to a close and the breeze coming in off the pier, it was cool enough to be bearable. There was a carnival smell mixed in with the sea-salt and brine, hot dogs and candyfloss and frying onions, and a holiday air to the people who’d come to make the best of the last days of summer, before school started and the New York autumn wrapped the state in grey. In his leather jacket, Jace looked like just another teenager dragged along unwilling on a family day out.

“Very well,” Jace said slowly, eying his neon-bright wristband. “So what exactly does one do at Coney Island?”

“ ‘One’ drops the formal British, for a start,” Simon said dryly, “if ‘one’ wants to pass for an American teenager.” He grinned. “And then we try out the rollercoaster.”

“Okay.” Jace frowned. “What’s a rollercoaster?”

This was going to be _so much fun._

*

The rollercoaster was a huge success. Far from being freaked out and getting sick, as Simon had half-expected, Jace flung his arms up and _whooped_ as the cart spun upside-down on the tracks, looping like a dragon’s tail forty feet up in the air, and Simon yelled out with the same exhilarated joy, high on adrenalin and the fierce delight Jace turned on him, with the wind kissing their hair and the screams and laughter of their fellow passengers a chorus as they raced through the sky –

“Again,” Jace demanded, lit up like a firework and Simon grinned and they rode it again, and again, the blond restless and impatient with the queue each time but crowing so fiercely up in the air, arms spread as if he could lay claim to wings, as if he meant to take off from the coaster tracks himself.

“Don’t you want to try anything else?” Simon asked, trying not to laugh as Jace made to go line up again after their fourth time on the ride.

Jace’s eyes lit up. “Are they all like that?”

Simon grinned. “Not quite.”

The Ferris wheel made Jace marvel, amazed to be up so high, although he expressed his disappointment – loudly – that it didn’t go upside-down. Which of course meant that Simon _had_ to show him the Zonobio next, a ride which flipped you over and over in a permanent somersault while whipping you through the air at 60mph. Even Simon felt a little queasy after that one, but Jace _loved_ it, laughing like a kid at the insane rush, the weightless speed, and his fearlessness made Simon ache to lean over and kiss him, flooded to the brim with hopeless adoration. He wanted to wrap Jace in this moment and never let him go, capture him in the sunlight and laughter like a treasure in amber, where the darkness could never reach him again. After Renwicks, to see Jace like this – so bright, so alive, so unabashedly _happy_ …

Kal-El, but Simon would do anything to keep this.

The bumper-cars were confusing, and Simon doubled over laughing at Jace’s kittenish frown as he puzzled out the pedals and steering wheel, but the Shadowhunter got the hang of them quickly enough. He and Simon chased each other around the space in snaking circles, Jace ignoring the other drivers while Simon gleefully rammed into everyone he could reach, cackling like mad before whizzing away again. And he hadn’t even had sugar yet.

Which reminded him, and he and Jace went to find something to eat. (“What do you mean you’ve never had a hot dog?!”) There were frankfurters drizzled in onions and ketchup, and neon slush puppies that turned their tongues purple, and then Simon insisted on clouds of candy-floss, giant pink cotton balls on sticks striped like candy-canes. Jace’s expression when the woman handed him his was _priceless_.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he demanded as Simon laughed and laughed and _laughed_.

“You _eat_ it!” Simon gasped, wiping the tears out of his eyes. “No, wait, I’m going to get my phone out, do that face again.”

Jace didn’t pull quite the same expression, but his _dear Lord you actually are a lunatic aren’t you?_ face was almost as good, especially with the pink candy-floss in the same shot. Simon’s grin stretched so wide it almost hurt as he stared down at the picture. “I will treasure this forever,” he declared.

Jace rolled his eyes and took a bite of candy-floss. But Simon knew it was only to hide his smile.

Simon, of course, managed to get the sticky pink stuff in his hair, while Jace managed to keep a single speck of crystallised sugar from sticking to his cheeks. It didn’t matter; as Jace helped him get the wisps of floss out of his hair, Simon could still smell the sugar on his breath, still knew, sharply, that Jace’s lips would taste of it if he only leaned forward and kissed him.

Jace’s eyes glanced into his as if he’d heard the thought, and froze, his fingers still in Simon’s dark hair.

Simon swallowed. “It’s okay,” he whispered. Meaning; _it’s okay if you do_. And, also; _it’s okay if you don’t_.

Something uncertain and fragile flickered across Jace’s face, and he glanced away at the crowd around them, almost nervously, and Simon wanted to cry. Not because he felt rejected – he didn’t, not really, gods, he understood – but because someone, so many someones, had crippled Jace like this, made him afraid when he shouldn’t have to be; Jace, who should never be afraid of anything. Not that the Nephilim held the patent on being homophobic assholes, not by a long shot, but Simon would never be afraid like Jace was now.

They came from such completely different worlds, and not for the first time Simon wanted to burn the Shadow World to the ground; wanted it with a vicious, terrifying intensity. Wanted to eradicate every _trace_ of the culture that had brutalised Jace’s ability to love openly.

“It’s okay,” he whispered again, meaning it – meaning it more than anything. He wanted so badly to take Jace’s hand, but he’d have cut his own off at the wrist before making Jace any more uncomfortable. He made himself exhale, and started to climb off the bench. They were sitting at one of those white plastic tables with a bright, cheery parasol sprouting up from the centre of it – Simon thought he’d glimpsed the brand of some ice-cream on the umbrella. “How about we just – ”

And his thoughts stuttered, stopped, brushed away by the brush of Jace’s lips on his; quick and light and sugar-sweet.

It was only an instant. It felt like an hour, felt as though time drew in a breath and held it, stretching the second of kiss into a long, languid caress of mouth-on-mouth. Huge, and heavy, and momentous.

Time breathed out.

Jace pulled back slowly, watching for Simon’s reaction. A flush of colour stained his cheekbones, and he held himself deliberately still, as if he had to consciously work at not looking around to see if anyone had seen them.

But he didn’t look. And Simon felt himself grin, so wide and love-drunk that his cheeks ached.

Relief melted the tension out of Jace’s shoulders, and he smiled back at Simon. “I don’t care,” he said firmly.

_I love you._

Simon’s heart skipped a beat. “I don’t care either,” he said softly.

_I love you too._

“Now come on.” He stood up and started gathering up their rubbish. “The day’s not over yet!”

*

He didn’t think it could be that simple, of course. Or that quick. He doubted even Jace could get over this kind of fear so quickly. It would take time, and patience, and Simon was ready to give Jace as much of both as he needed.

But that didn’t mean, when Jace casually took a step closer and laced their fingers together, that Simon was going to do anything but squeeze encouragingly and hold on tight.

*

“You _cannot_ go to a theme park and not ride the teacups,” Simon said firmly, steering Jace towards the ride. “It’s a _law._ ”

And it turned out that that was _exactly_ the right thing to say – of course it was, Shadowhunters and their Law, why didn’t he think of that earlier – to make Jace’s protests mute down to under-his-breath muttering as Simon picked out a blue-and-white teacup for them to sit in.

“My dignity may never recover,” Jace said archly, and Simon snapped another picture because it was impossible to resist.

“It’s not supposed to be dignified,” Simon grinned, and then they were off; turning slowly at first, and then faster, and Simon showed Jace how to hold on to the disc and they were spinning like Catherine wheels, dizzying and electric and the whole world whirling around them, reduced to blurs and streaks of colour. Simon laughed and Jace was grinning like he couldn’t believe it and they both hauled on the disc to spin their cup even faster; without discussion it segued into a contest, both of them pulling on the disc harder and harder, spinning it round and round faster and faster until even Jace was laughing, exhilarated, their hands side by side on the disc, whirling as if dancing –

Then it was the Slingshot, a 150 ft drop that ripped a totally-faked-what-are-you-talking-about-you-heard-nothing shriek from Simon.

Then the Wild River ride, just because Simon wanted to see Jace get his hair wet.

Followed by the Electro Spin, which reminded them both of the ride from the Dumort, with its motorcycle-style seats and its crazy drops…

By the time they stumbled off the Spin like a pair of drunks, it was nearly time for the park to close. The little restaurants and hotdog sellers were closing up, and if it wasn’t quite growing dark, it was definitely getting dark _er_ , edging towards twilight. Simon stared up at the sky a little mournfully; he didn’t want the day to end.

Jace squeezed his fingers, and Simon looked down at him instantly, a smile summoned to his lips. “Yeah?”

“Do we have time for one more?” The summer heat had dried out Jace’s hair; it was soft and silken again, only a lingering dampness on his collar to say they’d ever ridden the Wild River.

“I think so. Maybe just one.” Simon looked around. “Do you have one in mind?”

Jace considered. After a beat, his expression carefully careless, he asked, “What about the carousel?”

Simon’s throat closed. “Sure,” he said quietly. “We can do that.”

He wanted to ask, as they stepped into the short queue, why Jace had picked it; the blond had made it very clear today that he loved the fast rides, the ones that spiked his blood with adrenalin and made his heart roar. The carousel was beautiful, all gilt and mirrors and elegant horses prancing on golden pillars like sticks of barley-sugar, but it was not the kind of thrill-ride Jace seemed to like.

But Simon didn’t ask, and Jace didn’t explain. They waited silently in the queue until the ride attendant waved them on, with only a small frown to see two teenage boys climbing up together; and then the two of them picked out their horses.

The Luna Park carousel was famous all over the world for the beauty of its horses. Where most carousels – at least those that Simon had seen – were painted shiny like plastic in clumsy, cartoonish colours, the horses at Luna Park had been hand-carved from wood thirty years ago by master artisans, and then painted to give a matte, satiny finish. But that only made them unusual, not unique; the reason they were featured on postcards and tourist memorabilia was because they had wings. Each and every one of the Luna Park Carousel’s horses had wide, sweeping wings like an angel’s, every feather lovingly picked out of the wood. The wings made what might have been only a beautiful merry-go-round into something magical.

Jace made a beeline for a black pegasus with its front hooves raised off the ground as it reared, its ebony wings swept back as if it was about to leap into flight. Its wooden mane and tail streamed behind it, and it was armoured; plates of painted silver metal covered its body and neck beneath a sheet of flowing blue ‘silk’. A metal faceplate protected its head, with a curved metal alicorn extending from its brow like a unicorn.

Simon had to suppress a smile; Jace had gone straight for the warrior horse, which didn’t surprise him at all. For himself, Simon just climbed onto the horse closest to his lover’s, a white pegasus with beads in its mane and a sky-blue harness, one foreleg lifted delicately from the ground. Its wings curved as if to protect those on either side from rainfall.

The makers of the carousel had been careful; the wings of the horses didn’t obscure the view. Simon could turn his head and see Jace easily, a little in front of him, guarded by the strong black wings of his armoured horse. As if sensing his gaze, Jace glanced back at him. His smile was almost shy.

“Last go-round, everybody!” The attendant called. “Here we go!”

The music started. Simon clutched the golden pole rising out of his horse’s back as the animals began to move, rising and falling in a languid gallop. There were a few young children riding the horses around him, but most of the animals ran to the bright, cheerful music alone.

Simon closed his eyes, feeling the cool metal under his hands and the breeze on his face. It had been a perfect day.

He wished it didn’t have to be followed by tomorrow.

The song glowed softly in his mind, a ribbon of gentle light pulling them all along. It was soothingly familiar, and Simon found himself humming along to it under his breath, the horses rising and falling dreamily over the wooden boards. With his eyes closed he couldn’t tell how many times they’d made a full circle; twice, three times? Four? Five…

 _“Ffffffound you, little ssssssinger!”_ a fanged voice hissed, and suddenly everything was pain.

 

 

* * *

 

NOTES

Song credit (obviously) goes to Queen. Jace singing Bohemian Rhapsody was unabashedly inspired by [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmEG-klyoeI).

I have taken some liberties with Luna Park. It does exist, but many of the rides mentioned aren’t included in the wristbands, and I completely made up the carousel. Speaking of;

Simon’s horse <http://www.ibelievecollectibles.com/product_83903.htm>

Jace’s horse <http://www.ibelievecollectibles.com/product_83905.htm>


	2. Abigor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was mad at the world today, so I decided to spread the misery by posting the next chapter. VOILA! 
> 
> Some news: my beta Cassie is, for the moment, far too busy to keep up with her beta-ing, and rather than put Runed on hiatus we've agreed that I'm going to continue on my own for the moment. So any and all mistakes are even more mine than usual, and you should feel free to point them out so I can fix them!
> 
> But mostly I just want to see you guys cry. SO. Read on, my dears, read on...

The world broke apart and Simon _screamed_ , instantly undone as claws closed around his throat; they touched his skin and that _sound_ struck like lightning, detonating through his nervesbloodbones _nononononono not again Godnoplease_ and he couldn’t hear himself screaming, wasn’t aware of being ripped from his horse, couldn’t feel his body convulsing, heaving up bile and blood _get it out of me make it stop make it stop **makeitstop!**_ There was only the song and his hands clapped to his ears in a desperate attempt to muffle it, to stop it shredding through him _(death-song hymn to murderdarknesscoldcoldcold)_ and blood was trickling between his fingers and down his neck, it was everything vilebadwrong made music, the antithesis, it played him, he was its instrument and it was soul-destroying agony searing his mind white-black-red, red-red-dead, beyond words beyond memories burning him alive tearing him apart atom by atom _please no stop stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP!_

A tearing-metal shriek sounded worlds away, and the song cut off mid-note. Simon hit the ground hard and he was coughing, gasping for breath, his throat bruised but the sheer _relief_ drowned out that minor pain –

“Simon, _move!”_ Jace shouted, and Simon’s body rolled to its feet without any say from his brain. People were screaming, running, and his bones had turned to water, he was weak and dizzy –

And then Simon saw why everyone was screaming.

_“Simon!”_

He stumbled backwards towards the sound of Jace’s voice, unable to tear his eyes away. For an instant he saw the wings and thought _angel_ , but it wasn’t, couldn’t be; it towered over the crowd, ten, twelve, fifteen feet tall, and where Abbadon had been housed in broken flesh with blackened bones this thing was pale and smooth and perfect, almost beautiful. But it was _wrong_ , wrong like a blight; the feathers of its wings weren’t feathers at all, only feather-shaped scales, black as ink except for the steel-like edge along the primaries, glinting like blades in the dying sunlight.

Sunlight. _Sunlight._ There wasn’t much of it but the sun hadn’t fully set yet and _what was it doing out in the sunlight?_

It was hissing, ignoring the humans around it as it shook its hand – the fingers ended in hooked claws but the hand itself was smoking, burning, and insight flashed, Simon’s hand flew to his neck and felt his blood still wet there, his blood that must have dripped onto this thing’s hand when it grasped his throat –

_His blood was burning it –_

Its head snapped around as if it heard the thought, and Simon flinched back still further: its eyes were solid black, twin orbs of jet, and meeting their gaze was like staring down the barrel of a gun. Its face was marked with a vertical black stripe on each cheek, gleaming like ink, and Simon tasted bile.

“Sssssinger!” it hissed, and its teeth were white needles in rows like a shark’s but its saliva was black as oil, the inside of its mouth slick and dark and _horrible._ “Little _fabaznil_ –” _Poisonblood_ , something in Simon translated automatically, with a side-step because it wasn’t quite Enochian, it was younger and darker and rougher but still familiar enough to understand, “ – but you are yet only a fledgeling, I think.” It flexed its claws, the last of the stinking smoke dissolving away with the gesture; the long razors splintered the light. “I will make this easy for you, singer; lie down and be silenced, and I will spare your friend.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure that if it was calling him a singer _(as Abbadon had, why, what did it mean why did his blood burn this one what was going **on** )_ then being silenced probably meant being dead _(but more, because he remembered Abbadon, remembered falling into those black-hole eyes and feeling everything grow cold and quiet, a smothering silence reaching in to snuff out his heart, the song that was his heart)_. His hand fell to his belt and closed around Simiel, chilled, trying not to be terrified but it was so fucking hard and the people, what were they seeing, how on Gallifrey were he and Jace going to keep them all from getting killed?

He risked a glance around, and nearly sighed with relief; the area was almost empty, the last few stragglers running for the park’s gates at breakneck speed. Whatever they saw, it must have been bad enough to convince them not to stick around.

_Now to keep OURSELVES from getting killed…_

“Don’t even think about it,” Jace said sharply, a tense, sharp note in his voice as if he thought Simon might actually be considering it. The blond reached out and grabbed Simon’s arm, pulling him backwards and to the relative safety of Jace’s side.

“Oh please, like I would ever fall for that crap, everyone knows the bad guys never stick to their deals. That means no,” Simon added in the demon’s direction. “No, no, a billionty times _no._ ” He was babbling and he knew it, but it was a struggle to stop when faced with those implacable black eyes. “Fuck off back where you came from, and all that.” He swallowed hard. “Please tell me other Shadowhunters are going to show up soon,” he said under his breath.

Jace’s silence was answer enough. Alec would know something was badly wrong, but they were too far away for Jace’s _parabatai_ to be able to sense their location. And neither of them dared take the time to reach for their phones.

Simon breathed in deeply. “Right.”

“Don’t think,” Jace said quietly, fiercely, without taking his eyes off the demon. “What you said this morning – don’t you dare think, Simon. I’m not losing you.”

Simon pulled Simiel free from its sheath at his belt. “As long as you understand that it better be fucking mutual. _Simiel!”_

 _“Sansavi, Rachiel!”_ Jace snapped beside him, and the three seraph blades sprouted like crystalline claws of their own, Wolverine all dolled up in diamonds. “Of course.”

“Excellent.” Simon forced steel into his spine. “Something wrong with your ears, sulphur-breath?” he demanded loudly. “I said _no._ What are you going to do about it?”

“Sulphur-breath?” Jace asked in a whisper. The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Shut up, I am under extreme pressure, you can’t expect my best material in these conditions – hey! Did you hear me?”

“I heard, fledgeling. I am merely giving you the chance to reconsider.” Abbadon had worn poor Dorothea’s corpse like an ill-fitted suit, but the demon with the black stripes on its cheeks was clothed in armour carved from bone, yellowing plates of ivory embellished with insets of shining black metal. It couldn’t be human bone, Simon told himself, sickened. The plates were too large. “Do you not know who I am?”

“Should we?” Jace asked. “I’ve got to be honest, I’m not sure I’d remember you even if we’d met before. Bone armour is so cliché, don’t you think?” he asked Simon, who nodded solemnly.

“It’s been done,” he agreed. _“Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls_ … Total copyright-infringement, not original at all, the judges are holding up itsy-bitsy scores for you.”

But the demon only smiled like someone watching the antics of two stupid kittens – kittens who were about to be drowned, Simon thought with a chill. “I am Abigor, little singer; sometimes called Eligos by those foolish enough to summon me.” Beside him, Jace stiffened. “Ah, your friend knows me after all.” Abigor smiled again, and the sight of it was nearly enough to make Simon throw up, all smug pleasure and inhuman teeth and so fucking _wrong!_ “I will give you one last chance, youngling: kneel, now, and your end shall be quick.” The smile twisted into a smirk. “It may even be painless.”

“Simon,” Jace said softly, “run.”

The river of fear that had been building in Simon burst its banks with a roar, panic sweeping through him in an ice-cold wave as understanding hit like a bullet: Jace knew this demon, recognised the name, had gone from commanding Simon to fight to ordering him to run and there was no way, no way in any world that could be anything but a disaster; if even Jace didn’t think they had a chance –

If even Jace didn’t think they had a chance then they were going to die –

_I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’tIcan’tI –_

“Simon,” Jace said again, and Simon saw how white Jace’s knuckles were on his blades, how his entire body was _aimed_ at Abigor like a knife ready to be thrown or a falcon about to strike. _“Go!”_

“Not in a million years,” Simon whispered. Never _._ Leave Jace to stand alone against this thing? _Never._

Simiel _blazed_ up, its steady glow bursting into a conflagration like a star come to earth and Simon _snarled_ , feeling his face twist and morph with perfect golden fury; _no, never, how do you DARE,_ and he didn’t think, didn’t run, the scars on his wrists and cheek burned like fire and his fears snapped off like a light, swallowed whole by his own darkness, by the howl of triumph-defiance-wrath that answered the summons of his rage;

_Never._

_Never._

_NEVER._

“You want me?” he snarled at Abigor, black wings spreading wide behind his eyes – wider by far than this little _sparrow_ , wide enough to murder the sun with shadows – “Then _come and take me!”_

“As you wish,” Abigor said mildly. It reached up and drew a long, terrible sword from the sheath at its back, and Jace inhaled sharply at the sight of it. Simon didn’t blink, didn’t flinch even though the part of him that loved Dr Who and rescued spiders and missed his mom like a limb quailed away from the long length of viciously serrated black crystal. It was nearly as long as Simon was tall and it shimmered with an inner fire, a light just like Sanvi’s or Anael’s but dark, demonic –

“An infernal blade,” Jace whispered. He didn’t sound afraid, quite, but his voice was drawn tight as a bowstring about to break. “Hodge said they were just stories – ”

“Hush, _aikane,”_ Simon crooned, keeping his eyes locked on Abigor. _“And stand side by side against the darkness.”_

Jace shuddered beside him. _“And let the shadows howl with despair_ , _”_ he exhaled shakily.

 _“For together we are stronger,”_ Simon whispered. _“Together we are whole.”_

He felt Jace go still; felt his lover, not relax, but settle, ready, brace himself –

And Abigor _moved_ , faster than Raveners or Forsaken or even vampires, as fast as Abbadon, but this time he had Jace at his side and he would not, could not lose his trance; when the black blade fell neither of the boys were there to meet it, gone like ghosts, Jace left and Simon right and Abigor came after Simon as he’d known the demon would, had to, _singer singer singer_ and _come on, come and get me!_ , everything gone ultraviolet and searing white, bright as Simiel, diamond-cut and roaring like a storm, snapping through crisp neon thoughts like flipping through the pages of a book, considering-evaluating-discarding stratagems in strobelight flashes, weighing advantages and disadvantages in milliseconds cool as glass –

Glass. _Reflective._ The sun was setting now, the light fading, but –

_Mirrors and blood, we need –_

Steel flashed in the corner of his eye and he dropped, swinging Simiel up and around with a snarl as he fell; and Abigor’s wing swept down, razor-edged primaries spread like fingers reaching for him but the seraph blade was there waiting and the force of the blow drove its wing into the _adamas_ sword. It split around the blade and ichor rained down like an oil-spill and the demon _roared_ , pain and rage deep enough to shake Simon’s bones.

He was up almost before the wing could begin to withdraw, fast, so fast, and he cut again, driving Simiel two-handed between another pair of feather-scales, knowing exactly where to strike for the greatest impact _(don’t stop to wonder how you know just_ cut _)_ and was rewarded by another enraged shriek, ichor soaking through his shirt and splashed across his face and Simon laughed, leaping back lightly, swinging Simiel in idle, mocking circles.

“Is that the best you can do?” he called. Amused and elated and stalling, distracting, the ichor was cordial-sweet on his tongue and he had to give Jace time to get Alec on the phone –

The wing pulled back, still weeping black blood, and Abigor hissed. “Foolish little singer. Prolonging this will not – ”

“Not listening, don’t care, _Sandalphon!”_ The blade sprang forth like a ribbon of crystal in his left hand and Simon glanced at the sky and its ebbing light, measuring-calculating and he was already running towards Abigor, flat out, faster than fast, the tall rides and the park’s trees made too much shadow –

The infernal sword cut across his vision like a black lightning bolt, slicing through the twilight with its cruelly jagged edge. Simon’s arms snapped up but he wasn’t strong enough to meet the blow; black crystal met white with a chime like maddened bells and Simon was smashed down to his knees with a cry, his arms shaking under the pressure bearing down on his swords; a mountain’s weight, a planet’s, Abigor’s dark blade held mere inches from his face and Simon’s muscles _screamed_ , cracking like porcelain with the effort of _not dying_ –

“Did you think to take Sandalphon for your model?” the demon mocked, its eyes glinting with satisfaction. “You will not have the chance, fledgeling.” The pressure increased, and Simon’s arms jerked, the crossed blades pushed closer to his face. “Give up now!”

Simon wasn’t listening; there was another voice speaking to him from the shadows pooled in his veins, inhuman instinct unfolding in his head like silver origami coming apart, revealing secrets written in gold runes along the seams; _like this,_ the shadows whispered, ordered, knowledge beyond words tearing through him in a rush, _do this, do it NOW –_

“Simiel,” he forced through gritted teeth, a snarl of effort and defiance and _“Simiel,_ _SIMIEL,”_ and with each invocation his _armask_ _ō_ blade burned brighter and brighter until the light of it was searing through his eyelids and Abigor was _howling_ , the stink of burning demon-flesh toxic and thick in Simon’s lungs and Simon _roared_ the name of his blade, heaving himself up off the ground and throwing Abigor’s sword off with his own; driven by Abigor’s suddenly unsupported weight it plunged into the earth –

And Jace barrelled into him, knocking him to the ground as Abigor’s uninjured wing sliced through the air where Simon’s neck had just been. They hit the grass with their blades retracted mid-fall, and Simon scrambled up as Jace rolled to his feet and they bolted, two bullets shot into the twilight. Simon had been here more than once, he should have been the one leading but Jace was a human Google Earth, he couldn’t have expected a demon attack here but he’d clearly internalised the terrain anyway, some battle-born sense memorising his surroundings even while he and Simon had been laughing and loving and feeding each other candy floss, and Simon followed him without hesitation.

They ducked into one of the restaurants, a solid-looking building of grey brick with a green slate roof. The lights were still on, and half-eaten meals had been abandoned on the tables. No one had stopped to clean or lock up before fleeing, and Simon stepped around a plate broken on the floor, the fragments gleaming like shards of bone in the light.

“Get your shirt off,” Jace ordered, brusquely direct. He crossed to the wall and flicked off the lights, blanketing them in shadow; he moved like something feline and golden, even in the dark. “Hurry up!”

Simon was already stripping; shoving his retracted blades into his belt, he shrugged his jacket to the ground and pulled his shirt up and over his head, and instantly Jace was there, kneeling with his stele in his hand. Simon bit down on his bunched-up shirt to muffle his pained hisses as the _adamas_ wand flowed across his chest, carving black bars of musical Marks into his skin. The melody they made unspooled in his head, dazzling ripples of golden sound as Jace swiftly scribed their measures onto his body – rapid piano-flurry speed, deep bass strength, soft chiming night-vision, unfinished _iratzes_ missing vital beats, ready to be completed quickly if he was injured – the inimical opposite of Abigor’s sick song.

“They’re on their way,” Jace said without pausing from his work. “Alec and Magnus are going to pick up Izzy, and then Magnus will portal them all here.” _Sigilo. Silminvar. Xorti. Tharros._ They whispered their secret names to Simon and sang their strength through his skin, kissing him with fire, with stealth, with blessed aim and luck and courage _._ He could feel each one, pulsing, singing, each voice and instrument being woven into a chorus of power. “By the Angel, I don’t dare give you any of the permanent runes, not like this!”

“It’s fine, it’ll be enough,” Simon forced out around his shirt.

Jace pushed up the leg of Simon’s jeans and drew a last Mark above his ankle; _libratum, surefooted_ , and it snapped and crackled with percussive thrill, a sharp dubstep measure. “That’s all we have time for.”

Simon shook out his shirt and pulled it back on. Part of him had registered that Alec was with Magnus, and was distantly pleased for him, but the rest of him was sharp and cold and could hear black feathers rustling like silk and wind behind the music of his Marks. “How long will it take them to get here?”

“Twenty minutes.” Quick, clear, without ostentation. Battle-trained and battle-ready; Jace unfolded to his feet and drew a blade. _“Kabshiel.”_

“Tell me about Abigor,” Simon ordered, putting his jacket back on. Kabshiel had taken a shape that Simon hadn’t seen before, a wide-bladed sabre. Its light turned Jace’s hair to star-touched silver.

“It commands sixty legions of lesser demons. A General. When the demons find a new world to attack and devour, Abigor’s one of those who plans the campaigns. There’s been no recorded sighting of it in nearly four hundred years.” Jace’s golden skin was washed pale by his seraph blade, but his voice didn’t waver. “The texts say it knows the secrets of war and prophecy.”

“Weaknesses?” Four hundred years, and it had dragged itself out of Hell – _during daylight_ – to see to Simon’s execution personally. _Why?_

He already knew the answer. _Because my blood burns it._

“Same as all Greater Demons; sunlight and seraph blades. Not much else.”

He thought of _Supernatural._ “Holy water? Salt?”

But Jace shook his head. “Those won’t affect Greater Demons. Not enough to be useful.”

Dread and impatience roiled; Simon could feel the seconds slipping away from them, a torrent of burning embers. Abigor would find them soon, there wasn’t _time_ , and Simon felt hot and restless, shifting in his skin. He swiped his tongue over his lips reflexively. “Simiel burns it. There’s a restaurant here in the park with mirrors all over the walls – the Luna Grill. Mom and I ate there the last time we were here. If we can get Abigor in there – ”

“ – We can blast it from all sides.” Jace’s eyes glittered, and he grinned.

Simon didn’t smile. “If the light burns through the armour.”

“Even if it doesn’t, it should cause enough damage to give the others time to get here.” Jace swung his sword testingly, and looked satisfied. “Chinese _dao_ ,” he said, seeing Simon watching. “One of the best designs for getting through armour.”

Simon glanced at the windows. He couldn’t see Abigor in the darkness, and Kabshiel’s light was screwing with his night-vision anyway. But the tension wasn’t fading, only building; heat twisted through his veins like molten wire, sharp-toothed and itching and sweet. “You should get out of here.”

A pause.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Jace said. In the light of his sword, his eyes were silver and black. “Because I know you can’t be stupid enough to actually mean it.”

 “I wasn’t asking.” Sweetness in his mouth. His skin felt too tight and he wanted to snarl, wanted to slam Jace up against the wall and _make_ him listen, make him _obey_. “I’m telling you to leave. Abigor is after _me_. It’s not interested in you. If you go, you’ll be safe.”

“If you think for one second that I’d take an offer like that,” Jace said softly, “then you don’t know me at all.”

Simon heard the snarl tear out through his teeth without registering that it had come from him, and the urge to pin Jace flat was _blinding,_ the need to bite into Jace’s throat until he felt the blond shudder and submit almost overwhelming. “I know you too well!” he snapped, biting back a shout. “I know you fight like it’s a game, complete with witty banter and gravity-defying Limit Breaks, and I know it’s going to get you killed!” He was breathing hard, struggling, desperate to make Jace see reason. “You have no idea what it felt like, watching Valentine take you away – don’t make me go through that again, _aikane,_ I can’t do it again, I _can’t_ – ”

The hard coolness in Jace’s face softened – and between one breath and the next his _aikane_ ’s arms were around him, holding him together and Simon hugged back reflexively, fiercely, frantically, clasping Jace to him as if that could keep him safe.

“Don’t make me,” he whispered into Jace’s shoulder. “I can’t, I can’t, _please_ don’t make me...” He was shaking, shaking apart, he couldn’t _breathe_ ; this, this warm, living body against his, how could he lose this? How could he survive it if this skin turned cold, if the light in those eyes went out forever? “You don’t know what it was _like!”_

“Yes, I do.” Jace tensed, his body suddenly stiff against Simon’s. His embrace tightened, but he didn’t continue at once; Simon could feel him struggling.

“I was across the room,” Jace whispered finally. “And you were facing Abbadon. Do you remember?” His voice was low, low and brittle. As if it was taking everything Jace had to keep it from breaking. “I saw you fall to your knees, and I couldn’t help you, I couldn’t _reach_ you. And Clary came, _she_ saved you, but you – you crumpled, Simon.”

Jace’s grip was bruising, but Simon barely noticed. He was frozen in place.

“You weren’t breathing in that truck,” Jace whispered. “There was no pulse. I watched you die, and there was nothing, _nothing_ I could do.” His fingers curled in the back of Simon’s shirt. “You knew there was a chance you could get me back. You had hope. I had _nothing_ , Simon. You were gone, and I was never, ever going to get you back.”

He hadn’t even been able to grieve, with Alec dying and the girls breaking down and the Cup to get safely back to the Institute. There hadn’t been time, and he’d stepped up and down what he had to do with his heart screaming itself to death in his chest, and Simon pressed his face deeper into Jace’s shoulder, the sting of tears building behind his eyes.

_I’m sorry._

His _aikane_ ’s lips brushed Simon’s temple. “But then I did,” Jace said softly. “You came back to me, like a gift from the Angel. So how can you imagine that I would leave you now?”

It was like drowning, this kind of love, like flying and falling; weightlessness and exhilaration and terror, disbelief and death and bliss, brine pouring into his lungs and the pressure of the sky crushing his bones. Too intense, immense, to be real.

Or be safe.

 _“Ya’aburnee,”_ Simon whispered, because nothing else could possibly come close to encompassing the ocean in his veins, the sea lapping at his breastbone. He turned his head and found Jace’s mouth desperately, sparks catching the moment they touched and pyres coming alight, waves smashing against dark cliffs; there were sharp, jagged edges in it, in their kiss, love and fear making them both frantic and clumsy, hearts racing because there really wasn’t time to touch but they had to, they _had_ to.

What if this was the last time?

After an ouroboros moment, Jace suddenly broke away, his head turning sharply towards the door. “I hear something,” he murmured. He held his _dao_ two-handed. “We need a back door.”

Simon breathed deeply and drew Simiel without invoking it. Waiting, side-by-side with his _aikane_ , and he couldn’t think of his mom in her coma, couldn’t think about not being there when she woke up, about not saying goodbye – “I don’t think we’re going to get the chance to find one,” he said evenly, because even he heard it that time –

And the front wall disappeared in the strike of a match, immolated like a camera flash, there one second and then just – _gone;_ gone in a searing blast of black fire. It swept across the wall like an ebony curtain and the brick and metal collapsed into ash beneath its roaring caress and the anti-light, the glowing darkness, burned Simon’s eyes and into his brain and flipped a switch, tripped a wire, struck a fuse and burned away every mote of fear, every shadow of panic. Wrath like light near blinded him in its place, fury and bloodlust like the taste of steel and stars on his tongue, his new runes singing a war-song through his skin and when the flames cleared he was ready, he was _there_ , invoking Simiel with a cry of rage and Abigor’s wings were spread to block their way but Simon lunged fast, so fast, and when he swung his blade Simiel sliced through the scales as if they were only coloured paper. They parted like water around his sword and Jace was right behind him and they both tore through, darting through the bleeding hole in the demon’s wing and only the fact that the mirrors were more likely to kill Abigor could make Simon run from engaging it further –

Only to skid to a stop as a wall of black fire streaked in front of them, cutting them off. The boys whirled around and Abigor held a hand outstretched, six fingers spread wide and ringed with serpents of dark matter. “Not this time,” the demon said, and even as Simon spun he saw the river of flames circle around, enclosing them on all sides. They gave off no light but seemed to suck it in, like a void in the world cut into the flickering shape of flames and fire, but the heat of them –

Valentine had used demon fire to burn down the Morgenstern manor – it had killed Jonathan –

And Simon wished that Jace had gone without him.

Abigor lowered its hand. “Enough running like rats,” it said. The sun was all but gone, the sky a wash of deepening sapphire and royal purple, only a few bronze-touched clouds to hint at the power that could have reduced the Greater Demon to dust. “Do not dishonour your blood any further, _anunnaku_. Stand and face me so this can be ended.”

Jace snorted. “What do demons know about honour?”

Abigor smiled. “Perhaps more than the Nephilim.”

 _Anunnaku_. It wasn’t an Enochian word. “The blood that burns you, you mean?” Simon asked coldly. Trying not to think of the flames at his back, of Jocelyn in the hospital, of Jace at his side, who would fall with him if he fell – “That blood?”

“The blood that makes you more like my kind,” Abigor said, “than _his.”_ It nodded mockingly at Jace.

Simon stared at the Infernal’s smile, at the sharp points of its teeth. The words made no sense – until, with a quick flash like the fall of a guillotine, they did.

“Don’t listen to it,” Jace said, “Simon, _don’t,”_ but Simon barely heard. He felt himself stumble backwards, away from the truth, felt Simiel slip from his fingers as horror rose in him like a tide of ice, realisation as deep and dark and cold as an arctic ocean.

_‘More like my kind than his.’_

_Like my kind_

_My kind_

_And you thought Valentine’s revelation was the worst there could be,_ some part of him whispered, and if he could have breathed Simon might have laughed, bitter and broken as something in him broke right through –

“Simon, it’s a _lie,”_ Jace said fiercely. “Demons do that, they lie, they lie just for the sake of it – ”

  _Infernal._

“There is no reason to lie,” Abigor said, “when the truth is the better poison.”

_Demon._

“You weren’t there,” Simon whispered. “I killed him and _laughed_ , Jace.”

**_Monster._ **

It explained everything. The ebon tide of inhuman rage that swept over him without warning. The strength to sever a man’s head in a single blow. The merciless brutality; the exhilarated, elated violence. The black wings in his mind. The _laughter_.

It explained it all.

“Demons can’t have children with Shadowhunters.” Jace’s eyes were fixed on Abigor, but his attention was dangerously split between the demon and Simon _(between the demon and the demon, between the two monsters, all this time and he’s a monster too)_. This wasn’t the time to process it, this wasn’t the place to let the bullet-bite shock take over and snap Simon back into a heart-maimed teenager, but Simon couldn’t help it; the hellfire, the danger, the gleam of Abigor’s sword – everything beyond his skin had gone numb and unreal as everything within had turned to frozen despair. “Simon, it’s a _lie,_ now pick up your blade and – ”

_Does mom know? Was that why she wanted us to leave for the summer, did she figure it out, did she guess that this thing in me was waking up? What is it, what am I, tell me there’s an antidote to this poison in my veins –_

_A poison so strong it burns demons –_

Simon had stumbled back in his shock; Jace was slightly in front of him, angled protectively between him and Abigor. But Jace was distracted. He did not turn his back on the Greater Demon but his gaze was on Simon, his lips parted to offer comfort –

 _(As if anything could comfort_ this _)_

Whereas Simon’s eyes were still turned forward – unseeing, struck blind by revelation –

Until a slash of movement called his gaze, and he saw Abigor’s hand close into a fist.

The ring of black fire suddenly shrank inwards, snapping tight like a noose and the _enkeli_ Mark on Simon’s arm came alight in a blaze of gold and Simon didn’t think, couldn’t think, lunged for Jace’s wrist and Simiel flew from the ground into his right hand with the flames just inches away –

_They sent a Greater Demon out in daylight to kill you –_

He thrust his seraph blade towards the sky, Simiel’s hilt laid against the burning _enkeli_ on his wrist, Jace pulled tight against his chest just as the flames closed tight around them –

_Your blood is poison to them –_

_“SIMIEL!”_ Simon screamed, not knowing how he knew to do it only that it was do or die –

**_They are afraid of you –_ **

And night turned to day.

**_ As they should be. _ **

 Light _detonated_ from the torch in Simon’s hand, an ocean of it, a supernova to outshine the sun and sear all dark things to ashes – light that was richer and more aurelian than sunlight, light that whipped and stormed around Simon and Jace like a tornado of fire and he could hear it, Simon could hear it, a sound like nothing he’d ever heard but that reforged his bones to benitoite and his every nerve-ending to opal – a song of war and wrath and majesty beyond bearing, beyond mortal comprehension. Standing upright under it was like holding up the sky; Abigor’s black flames raged just beyond the wall of golden light and Simon felt himself torn in half, clutching the seraph-blade-turned-beacon as his hand threatened to shatter, as the sword anchored the blinding light through his _enkeli_ rune and it was like being a lightning rod, grounding all that power through his body-sinew- _blood_ , that poison blood boiling in his veins until it howled up and out of his throat, an inhuman _scream_ of agony-defiance that had Jace clutching him tighter, shouting to be heard over the roaring light, “I’m here, I have you – ”

He could feel the weight, the _pressure_ of the hellfire bearing in on them, but he and Jace stood at the centre of an unbreachable ocean that would not fail, would not fall as it lit the space, the park, the _world_ – Simon wouldn’t let it fall, would _not_ let go and release it, this pinnacle of light that must be visible from the moon, that danced and descanted through him like a meteor shower – because Jace felt too fragile and mortal in the curve of his arm, pressed against his chest, flesh and blood that could be broken and lost and Simon would not, _would not_ let that happen – he _snarled_ and sable wings snapped wide behind his eyes, monstrous or not he didn’t _care_ , not when it gave him the strength to hold Simiel higher, to anchor the solar storm around them more surely. Beat and breath and they still weren’t immolated; the incandescent light lashed and tore around them in an inferno but Simon felt only a gentle warmth against his skin, a breeze carding through his hair like fond fingers.

It was only beneath his skin that it ripped him apart.

_They are afraid of you – **and they should be.**_

Simon cried out again in counterpoint to the song of the fire, the scream a hymn of rage and rebellion – _I can bear this, I can and I will and **you are right to be afraid** –_

 **_Geh ciaofin vl_ ** _–_

 **_ Are you scared yet _ ** **_–_ **

And then the hellfire was gone, the crush of it against Simon’s awareness snuffed out as if it had never been, leaving him momentarily dizzy. But he didn’t have long to consider it; he blinked and the auroral pillar of seraph-fire retracted, withdrawing and narrowing to a single spinning point like a star six or seven feet above Simiel’s dazzling point. It pulsed, once – like a heart, like a quasar – before plunging downwards, a streak of gilt flashing into the _adamas_ blade –

Simon flinched, expecting the ball of fire to go through Simiel and into his _enkeli_ , into _him_ – but it didn’t. Instead Simiel shone golden, momentarily jewelled in citrine and topaz, rays of amber and aureate light pinwheeling in a slow, lazy circle around the two boys.

When they had marked out a full rotation, the light dimmed, softening back to the seraph blade’s normal silvery phosphorescence, and Simon shakily lowered his arm. If Simiel hadn’t locked against his palm, he would have dropped it; every muscle felt like overstretched elastic.

“Simon?” Jace’s hand found his cheek; his voice was drawn tight. “Are you all right?”

His _enkeli_ Mark was black again, Simon noticed numbly. “I feel like I’m going to pass out,” he managed.

Jace dropped his hand to Simon’s shoulder, supporting him. “Try not to.” Wryness flickered through the words, there and gone beneath Jace’s worry. “That – whatever that was – didn’t get rid of the demon.”

_You have got to be fucking kidding me._

But when Simon turned to look, Abigor was making no move to attack. In the glow of the lampposts dotted around the park, it was clear that the Greater Demon was _kneeling_ , head bowed over the hilt of its midnight sword, which rested point-down on the earth. For a moment, Simon could only stare. Abigor was posed like a warrior swearing fealty in WoW, but with an added detail the orcs and night elves could never replicate; the demon’s huge wings were laid flat against the ground, in what was unmistakably a submissive gesture.

It made Simon’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

“I beg your forgiveness, _anunnaku,”_ Abigor said without raising its head, and Jace did not move, did not tense or start, but Simon felt his _aikane_ ’s keen surprise through the grip of Jace’s fingers on his shoulder. “I was not told that you had been claimed.”

_Claimed...?_

“Claimed by what?” Jace asked sharply. Simon hadn’t the strength to ask, could barely keep himself upright with Jace’s help.

Abigor looked up then, the black stripes on its androgynous face gleaming like wet ink or blood in the lamplight. It was hard to see where a wholly black eye was looking, without whites or pupil to go by, but Simon thought that the demon glanced from him to Jace and back again.

“If you do not know, _zurnzeaiz_ , it is not my place to tell you,” it answered the blond finally.

 _Zurnzeaiz. Swornsword._ Again, it wasn’t quite Enochian – but close enough that Simon could unknot the gist, could make at least a literal translation. _Swornsword_. What did that actually mean?

A quick glance at Jace showed that he didn’t know either.

 _But it’s not going to kill us,_ Simon realised belatedly, struggling to make sense of what had just happened – and what had changed. The fire that had answered him when he called on Simiel – Abigor had knelt for it. Knelt to Simon because of it. Changed its mind completely about the execution it had been ordered to perform.

It made no sense at all.

Without taking his eyes from the demon, Jace squeezed Simon’s shoulder. “Simon, ask it who claimed you.”

“You misunderstand, Shadowhunter.” Abigor’s wing was still bleeding, dripping oily ichor onto the grass. “If the _anunnaku_ ’s...patron...has not made themselves known, I will not do so. I have not the right. Nor do I seek the final death just yet.” This last said wryly.

It looked to Simon. “May I have your leave to depart, _anunnaku?”_

“Oh, sure,” Simon said unthinkingly. “Please, go. Wouldn’t want to make you late for Satan’s tea party, or whatever appointment comes after _18:15 – murder teenagers in amusement park.”_

Abigor looked puzzled, but evidently took this for permission. Without another word, it lifted its wings from the ground and in a single sweeping gesture, enfolded itself in a cocoon of razor-edged feather-scales. Serpent-like shadows leapt up from the earth and swallowed the demon whole, and when they disappeared, Abigor was gone with them.

Just like that.

“How about now?” Simon asked weakly after a minute, both of them still staring at where the demon had been. “Can I pass out now?”

Jace was already turning away; he must have sensed his _parabatai_ ’s approach, because Simon heard familiar voices somewhere behind him, Alec’s and Izzy’s, and presumably Magnus was with them too.

Simon looked up at the sky, exhausted by the thought of the questions and explanations that would have to come now. As if he wasn’t drained enough already; he felt like an illusion, a wavering mirage that would dissolve at any moment.

A movement dragged his gaze down, towards the roof of the restaurant where he and Jace had taken such momentary shelter. Simon squinted, trying to see through the shadows. It was nearly full night now, but it looked like something was up there – something big enough to be human.

Or another demon.

“Jace...” Simon choked, cold venom biting deep into his throat. “Jace, there’s somebody on the roof. There’s – there’s something – ”

The words slipped away from him. No longer made of flesh and bone, but skin stuffed with poison-soaked cotton that couldn’t stay upright, strong, awake for one second longer. His bones deliquesced all at once, and the last thing he heard was Isabelle saying “Don’t tell me we missed all the fun,” before he fell like a star.

And it all went dark.

* * *

 

 NOTES

 _Fabaznil_  – poison-blood in demonic Enochian.

Abigor is a Commander of 60 legions in Hell, ‘skilled in secrets of war and prophecy’.

 _Geh ciaofin vl?_  – are you scared yet? (Enochian)

Those of you who have watched  _Ancient Aliens_  and similar shows might be familiar with the term  _anunnaki_ , which is the plural of  _anunnaku_. Don't take any of them as trustworthy info for Runed; I'm more interested in the etymology of the word than I am the mythology, as it has bearing on Simon.


	3. Dark Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, chapter three was getting insane (and insanely long) so I split it. At this point I'm estimating that this fic will be five/six chapters long...but we'll have to wait and see.
> 
> (No more than ten. If we pass ten chapters, I'm quitting life).
> 
> Once again, this was written without a beta (CASSIE I MISS YOU!) so any and all mistakes are mine even more than usual.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for violence and violent sex/dub-con. THIS IS NOT HOW HEALTHY BDSM WORKS.

_“Simon!”_

Jace’s panic was a flash fire in Alec’s chest, igniting in a blinding rush that seared all conscious thought to ash; Alec lunged, knowing-sensing where Jace would be, the two of them hands of the same body, directed by the same mind. Jace caught Simon’s shoulders and Alec grabbed the brunet’s hips and they eased him down carefully, Jace cradling Simon’s head to protect his skull from the hard ground.

“What happened, what’s wrong with him?” Alec asked, but Jace just shook his head, his eyes gone wild and frantic. His fear – _fear_ , real and bitter and biting – beat at Alec like fists gloved in ice, and they were close enough for Jace’s thoughts to cut through him like razors, his fear ripping their bond wide open; _*not again not again not again_ – _*_

Alec’s fingers flew to Simon’s throat, but saw that the boy was breathing before he had to touch skin. Relief nearly took _his_ breath away, and he thought a prayer of gratitude to Raziel that he didn’t have to tell Jace that his brother was dead.

“Let me have a look at him,” Magnus ordered, and Alec stood up out of the way, making room for Magnus to kneel down beside Simon. Fingers wreathed in amethysts and pink sapphires spread wide over Simon’s chest – and whipped away almost at once. “Stop touching him,” Magnus ordered sharply, “Alec, get him away from Simon _now,”_ and Alec didn’t have the bond with Magnus that he did with Jace, didn’t have the warlock’s thoughts nestled in and entwined with his own, but the strange, urgent tone in the warlock’s voice had him obeying without question; he leaned down and grasped Jace’s wrist to haul him up and drag him away –

And the moment he touched Jace, he felt it; an insatiable sucking _pull_ as if a black hole had gotten lodged beneath Jace’s skin, blue goldstone teeth buried in Jace’s psychic jugular and drinking him down, devouring him whole. Alec touched his _parabatai_ and the hunger engulfed _him_ , lashed out and latched on like a leech dropped from Yggdrasil, sucking on his energy in a whitewater rush –

He staggered, almost driven to his knees by the shocking drain, but then Izzy’s whip snapped around his waist and wrenched him back and he pulled Jace with him, didn’t let go, would never let Jace go –

And as abruptly as it had started the drain was gone, snapped off like a light. Jace sank to his knees, and it took all Alec had to guide his fall instead of dropping him.

“What the hell was that?” Izzy demanded. She looped her whip back around her wrist, looking pale as she glanced between her brothers. “Well?”

Jace shook his head, unable to speak. He felt light and empty on the other side of the bond, like a boy made of dandelion fluff. Alec held him tight.

“He’s been almost completely drained of aetheric energy,” Magnus said. “And somehow he’s figured out a way to pull it out of other people.” A hard blue light wove around his graceful hands like gloves, and he reached out above Simon’s chest, this time careful not to touch him.

“You’re talking about Simon.” Ice speared down Alec’s spine as he understood why his _parabatai_ felt like a ghost in his arms. “Is Jace going to be okay?”

Magnus glanced at the blond. “He’ll be fine. Simon didn’t have time to take too much.” Seeing Alec’s expression, he added, “If he was going to die, he’d already be dead. Give him a few minutes and he’ll be back to his usual obnoxious self.”

“Would somebody mind explaining in words the rest of us can understand?” Izzy snapped. “What’s aetheric energy? And is Simon some kind of psi vampire now?”

“It’s what fuels our runes,” Alec told her. When Magnus flicked a sharp, speculative look his way, he ducked his head to avoid it.

“Accurate,” Magnus allowed. “Common wisdom is that it’s what souls are made of. Mana. Life force. Whatever you prefer to call it. But I suspect that what Simon is doing is temporary and will stop once his reserves are full again – not that I understand _how_ he’s doing what he’s doing, it’s technically impossible, but – ”

He pointed at the ground, and Izzy gasped as they all saw it in the same moment: the perfect oval of dead and dying grass framing Simon’s body. Even as they watched it was still growing, expanding rapidly; Alec could _see_ the blades of grass darkening and withering into dry husks, washed blue by the light coming from Magnus’ hands.

“No one seems to have told him that,” the warlock said softly.

 _Impossible. Impossible._ Alec stared at the dead grass and knew: this was not one of the gifts Raziel had given to the Nephilim. If it had been, it would be too often-used to keep secret, too good a weapon to keep hidden. Neither Hodge’s lessons nor the books Alec read in the dead of night had ever hinted at something like this, and his skin crawled as he watched Simon devour a part of the world.

_Like a demon in human skin._

Sensing Alec’s revulsion, Jace flinched, his psyche compressing down into sharp, brittle obsidian.

“We need to get him out of here,” Magnus said finally. “I don’t know if he’s limited to the mana in living materials, but since he’s already figured out the impossible I don’t especially want to wait and see if he can take it out of metal as well.” Which would destroy the park, Alec realised quickly, looking around at the tall metal edifices. All the rides... He knew vaguely what an amusement park was meant for, but what in Raziel’s name had Jace and Simon been _doing_ here? “I think I can make him safe to move if you give me a moment.”

Alec’s palm had moved between Jace’s shoulder blades without his consciously being aware of it, automatically sending gentle waves of serene reassurance through the bond, a constant wordless mantra of _I’m at your side/I have you/you are not alone_ that was as comforting as firelight on a cold night. And Jace did feel cold, cold and empty, but he was growing warm again with encouraging speed, the small golden star in his ribcage brightening quickly. It was a relief to know that Magnus was right; Jace’s light would be back to its usual brilliance before much longer.

But that his aetheric levels were rejuvenating didn’t, couldn’t disguise the fact that something else was wrong. Jace had his head bowed, hiding his face, but Alec could feel – something like uncertainty, something shaken and raw with sharp teeth, and it was terribly, achingly familiar.

It felt like that night at Renwicks.

“He – said there was something on the roof.” Jace’s voice, not quite smooth enough to be mistaken for normal. “Simon. He saw something, just before he passed out.”

Izzy drew her whip again. “I’ll check it out.”

“Wait,” Alec said, _I’ll come with you_ on the tip of his tongue – but the words crystallised into ice in his mouth as he realised that going with his sister meant leaving Jace, and it was like Abbadon’s claws raking through him all over again, ripping him in two –

They both needed him, how was he supposed to _choose_ –

“Go with her,” Jace said.

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” Isabelle said at the same time – and then she was gone, her long, loping stride taking her swiftly into the darkness.

Alec looked after her, the nervous, skittering ache in his marrow demanding to go after her.

“She can handle herself,” Magnus said without looking up. His fingers sketched elegant sigils in the air, some invisible, others drawn with ribbons of light that faded after only a breath. He had beautiful hands. It was hard not to watch them.

And of course, Magnus spoke from experience. He’d been the one facing down a horde of demons with Izzy, not even on Earth but in the between-realms where the demons were stronger, while Alec was uselessly unconscious from Abbadon’s poison. Reminding Alec of his failure to protect his sister was _not_ the right track to take. Still, instead of arguing, Alec pulled out his stele and started to draw a night-vision rune on his arm, so that he could keep an eye on her without leaving Jace alone. The building she was heading for wasn’t so far away...

“Here, let me.” Jace stood up, slightly wobbly, and stole the stele from between Alec’s fingers.

Alec jerked his arm away before Jace could touch it. _Your boyfriend just tried to drain your mana!_ he almost snapped, but what he said was, “You probably shouldn’t. Not until your aetheric levels are back to normal.”

Jace stared at him. The shadows eclipsed most of his face, but there was no good way to disguise the turmoil Alec could sense through their bond. “All right.” He handed the stele back.

By the time the rune was done, Isabelle was already on her way back. “This is all I found,” she said, holding her hand out so they could see the gleam of metal cupped in her palm. “There was nothing alive up there. Or undead,” she added, just for the sake of clarity.

She flicked her wrist and tossed the object to Alec, who caught it out of the air and brought it up to his face to inspect it. It was a five-pointed star, a silver charm the size of his thumb nail. Wordlessly, he extended it to Jace. The blond took it with a blank expression.

And then, in the same moment, the three of them locked gazes in a Lightwood triskele. They needed no words to communicate; the grim understanding flashed between the trio like the fire in their name. A star for the Morgensterns, yes, and who would care for Shadowhunter affairs except another Shadowhunter?

“Whoever it was wanted to be seen,” Izzy said softly, and Alec felt Jace’s agreement as a flutter of dragonfly wings, green and shimmering.

“Yes, I’m sure the walking ego over there is not at all used to having stalkers,” Magnus said, getting to his feet. Alec watched him without meaning to, without realising that he was doing it. The night vision Mark altered your sight, turned everything silvery and silken, and the warlock fit there like gem in a platinum setting, as if the night was something made solely to frame him. “While you three discuss this fascinating turn of events, I’m going to reopen the portal. The containment spell on your little friend won’t last long, and I’d like to get him back to my apartment before it fails. If we’re all agreed that letting him eat the park would be a bad idea? Yes? Yes? I thought as much.”

*

_Everything was darkness, and everything was fire._

_Obsidian fire, dark as tongues cut from the night sky, licking up the walls and roaring their claim for all to hear. They gave no light but the heat was staggering, like standing in a forge, enough to stop the breath in Simon’s lungs. Poisonous smoke billowed everywhere, charcoal and sulphur, and Simon coughed, pulling up his shirt to cover his mouth._

_Beneath the sound of the flames, he could hear a child crying._

_“Hello? Is anybody in here?”_

_No one answered, but the weeping sounded louder._

_“Hold on, I’m coming!” Simon called. Gingerly, he tried to move towards the sound, but it was an ever-growing maze; without light he could only see the flames as flickers of deeper darkness, shadows blacker than black. The very stone in the walls was burning; the glass in the windows was melting, dripping like water down the panes, and Simon half-thought the oxygen in the air was about to go up in smoke._

_But when he stretched out his hand, the heat retreated. When he reached out, the flames flinched back, like living things afraid. He stepped forward and they fled from him, adders and asps fleeing a basilisk._

**_Monster._ **

_The crying grew louder. Simon walked through the flames, and they didn’t touch him. Part of the ceiling gave out with a crash behind him, but that didn’t touch him either._

_“Hello? Can you hear me?”_

_He turned towards a door at the end of the corridor, and like the red sea the fire parted for him, a fragile path of safety. There was enough light, from the window at the end of the hallway, to see a ring of stars engraved in the wood of the door; they glinted faintly with silver gilt. Morgenstern stars._

_And Simon realised where he was, what – and when – this place must be: Morgenstern manor, the night of the Uprising. The night Valentine had burned this house to the ground, and one of Simon’s brothers with it._

_The realisation crossed blades with the crying coming from inside the room, and in a wave of new panic Simon threw open the door – and froze._

_In the far corner, huddled against the flames, was a small boy, lit by the witchlight clutched in his hands. The soft light reflected from hair as pale and silvery as a star, and dark eyes wide and wet with terror, and Simon’s heart wrenched in his chest. He could only have been a few years old._

_“Jonathan?” he called, raising his voice so he could be heard over the flames. “Is that you?”_

_The boy nodded, holding his witchlight tight against his chest. “Y-yes. Where’re my brothers?”_

_Simon tried to smile, tried not to remember that Jonathan had died in this fire. “They’re fine, don’t worry about them.” The ebony fire was already in here, devouring the pastel wallpaper like strokes of greedy ink. “You and me are going to go find them, okay? We’ll – ”_

_“Stop!” Jonathan shouted, and Simon did, stopped just as he would have fallen. There was no floor; beginning a few inches from Simon’s shoes and ending a foot or two from Jonathan there was only a deep, impenetrable blackness, a terrible void of nothingness and cold. Looking at it was like staring into a black hole._

_Unreal horror and adrenalin raced through Simon, and he gripped the doorway tightly, shaken by the near escape._

_Jonathan was still crying. “You can’t save me. You’ll f-fall!”_

_Simon’s heart broke in two – and bled a grim determination through his veins, bitter and resolute and strong as a seraph blade. “I’m not leaving you,” he swore fiercely. Would his mom have left Jonathan? She had hated him, but if she’d been here, if she could have saved him, would she have let him burn?_

_It didn’t matter. Simon wouldn’t,_ couldn’t.

_He pulled back and surveyed the room. The nursery; black flames wreathed a wooden crib, elaborately carved with decorations swallowed by the fire. There was a window not far from Jonathan; if Simon was standing on Jonathan’s little island, he could probably reach it. Fire and oxygen; breaking a window would make normal flames worse, but would hellfire be affected the same way?_

_They would have to risk it. A window would get them outside, and they could climb or jump down if they had to._

_“I’m going to run and jump to you, okay?” Simon called. “And then we’re both getting out of here!”_

_Jonathan shook his head, holding his knees against his chest. “You should just go,” he said, shrinking in on himself. “Everyone will be happier with me g-gone.”_

_In that moment, Simon hated his mom. Hated her like he hated Valentine._

_“I’m not leaving you!” he shouted. Never. Not ever. Not even with the fire on all sides, not even with the bottomless pit waiting under his feet. Not even for his own survival would he,_ could _he turn his back on this boy, scared and alone and broken. His own blood, his brother, Jace’s fraternal twin –_ No. _“Not in a million years.”_

_Jonathan stared at him, amazed, and the pieces of Simon’s heart throbbed like wounds._

_He backed up into the corridor, readying himself. “Try to make room for me to land,” he yelled – and then he ran._

_He leapt, and –_

_Failed. He fell._

_He heard Jonathan scream and it was that, that which shattered him apart; not fear for himself, not the Lucifer-like plunge into the darkness, but knowing that he’d failed his brother and left him alone to die._

_But the shadows tasted like ichor, thick and sweet and hot on his lips, pouring over his tongue as he fell, pulled down by a drunken gravity; he spun over and over, around and around until he couldn’t remember which way was up and which was down, didn’t know if he was falling or flying, and the shards of his heart were lost somewhere in the dark, slipped through his ribcage and his fingers and gone, and the demon blood slid down his throat like ambrosia, catching fire in his belly and bleeding into his veins, nitro-glycerine and astrolite and it was so good, so_ sweet _–_

_He slammed onto his back, and_

*

jerked awake with a gasp.

“Simon?” He heard a rustle of blankets, a light being switched on, and then a warm hand was cupping his cheek as a familiar face came into view above him, frowning with concern. “What’s wrong, _aoiveae-orshé_? Are you all right?”

 _Aoiveae-orshé._ Dark star, spoken like an endearment.

Simon stared up at the man, struggling to calm the rushing panic left over from his…dream? Nightmare? “I think so,” he said slowly. “Just a bad dream.” The details were already fading from his memory, leaving only a smudge of remembered fear, and a tight, molten ache as if his blood was shining, that made him suddenly, sharply aware that he was naked beneath the sheets, and so was his lover.

 _Lover?_ That felt wrong, somehow. Simon’s gaze moved down from the man’s face, and caught on the exquisite rune over his heart, a complex, intricate design of swirls and looping knots.

 _Yes,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind. _He is your_ parastathentes _, and you adore him. From the moment you saw him you have been his, and he yours._

Of course he was. Simon smiled, the strange uncertainty melting away like the memory of his dream. “I’m okay,” he promised, reaching up to slide his fingers into his lover’s sable-silk hair. The runes on his wrists and fingers gleamed like onyx jewellery. “Really. It was just a dream.”

The tension went out of the other man’s shoulders. “You’re sure? Just a dream, not a vision?”

Simon’s eyes caught on his lover’s lips. His skin was drawing tight, the simmer of heat in his veins growing stronger, hotter. “I don’t think so,” he whispered. Without meaning to, he found his fingers trailing down the back of his _parastathente_ ’s neck, stroking the smooth, warm skin. He traced the shape of his lover’s powerful shoulders, the lithe, hard muscle of his upper arms marked with calligraphic runes. They whispered their names to him – _fortis, sabedoria, dexterias_ – and he knew them, from the pages of the Codex and from their places on his own skin.

 _The Codex?_ A flash of memory – a book with a battered cover, a voice saying _‘it’s an old edition,’..._

 _He gave it to you for your seventeenth birthday_ , the voice said smoothly, _so that you could learn what you are. He taught you everything you know about the Shadow World, and he taught you well._

That was right, he remembered now... But it was vague, smoky, and the heat beating beneath his skin didn’t care, was more focussed on the body in front of him, the hard, taut muscle ribboned with black. He could feel his lover’s eyes on him as he trailed his fingers down, cataloguing the familiar map of Marks; _enkeli, mnemosyne, forza_... Each one sang beneath his fingertips, a whispering chorus of rippling gold that echoed through him, a low, heated purr vibrating through his bones.

Simon wasn’t paying attention; he couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to. Not with those molten hematite eyes on him, watching him like prey, like a feast. He kept his own gaze on his lover’s chest but the attention made Simon’s stomach tighten with electric anticipation, with vicious, simmering _want_. It drew across the hunger from the dream like a whetstone, sharpening it, honing the razor-breath edge until it felt as if Simon’s skin would part around it, cut open from the inside. The muscle beneath his touch was hard and taut, drawn tight like a predator waiting to spring, and aroused seemed like too tame a word.

 _Remember,_ the voice murmured, and the memory reached up and overwhelmed him; last night, his naked skin against their velvet blankets, the sound of his own voice crying out for mercy. Literally crying, tears on his cheeks and salt on his lips, driven past shame by the hot wet press of his lover’s tongue lapping into his core. Cruelly wicked and wickedly cruel, prying him apart until Simon was sobbing, reduced to nothing but an empty vessel literally _dying_ to be filled, incoherent with need, helpless...

A note like struck crystal cut through the other runes, jolting him out of the sense-memory, and Simon paused with his fingers splayed over an _azo_ stamina rune. “This one...”

His _parastathentes_ glanced at Simon’s hand, then looked back at him. “You drew that one.” His voice was husky.

Simon’s mouth went desert-dry. “I did?”

His lover leaned closer. “You did,” he breathed against Simon’s ear, and Simon almost moaned.

Soft, almost mocking laughter whispered down Simon’s spine, rushing like fire through his veins, igniting him. Black velvet and dark furs rustled as the other boy-man shifted, and Simon reached for him, pulling him close even as his lover slid smoothly atop him, powerful, leonine-lean arms caging him in. For a brief second alarm fluttered in Simon’s chest, a sudden white flash of _waitnothisisn’tright_ , but then it was gone, drowned out by the searing wave of pleasure-bliss as the warm weight of another body settled on top of him, against him, a hard thigh parting his legs; his skin seemed a thousand times more sensitive than it humanly could be, choked with nerve-endings and each one a fizzing sparkler of light under the pressure, the contact. His legs melted open without resistance and his hands flew to his lover’s back, gasping, arching into it, his fingertips kissing the metal-smooth ropes of scar tissue snaking down his _para_ ’s spine –

 _Wrong._ It jolted through him; the texture of the scars under his hands wasn’t right, wasn’t meant to be. Simon froze, disorientated, dizzy with the sense that the world was spinning around him, coming apart around him, cracks shuddering through the fabric of reality on all sides –

_You’re not –_

Simon pushed him away and sat up, his breath coming fast and hard not with desire but with something like shock, something like panic. He couldn’t get enough air, there wasn’t enough air in the room, something was terribly, unutterably wrong –

“Simon?” His _parastathentes_ rolled onto his side, all warm concern. “Hey, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“You’re – you – ” Simon couldn’t articulate it, didn’t have the words to explain the choking dread tightening its fingers around his throat, but he flinched away from his lover’s reassuring hand. _Wrong, wrong, you’re not –_ Hardly able to speak, Simon threw back the covers and scrambled out of the bed, panting like an animal caught in a trap.

 _I don’t know this room._ It was a beautiful room, but he didn’t know it. Everything was deepest black and palest white, all onyx and pearl, exquisite but nothing he would have chosen for himself. There was a small fireplace of gleaming black marble, currently housing a knot of flames that burned warm gold, not hellfire-black. An ebony bookshelf took up one corner, neatly stacked with books and elegant, tasteful curios, all in shades of black and white – he dazedly realised that the books had probably been rebound to match the room, unless someone was actually obsessive enough to collect books based on the colours of their covers. Strange black designs were painted here and there on the walls. The full-length mirror propped against one wall was framed in dark wood and decorated with a mother-of-pearl inlay; without his glasses, he was too far away to make out the design. The walls were white, and the thick carpet on the floor looked as thick and soft as snow; gauzy white curtains billowed in the breeze from the open doors that seemed to lead out to a balcony. It was night outside.

And he was sitting on a nest of black velvets and furs, a bed raised up from the floor on a tiered white platform like an altar in a temple.

_And it felt holy, what they did here, didn’t it? Holy in the old ways, rich and raw as the rites of Inanna and Dionysius. A divine frenzy of teeth and need, a violent shattering, screaming, bleeding, pleasure so good it was pain and pain that broke open into pleasure –_

_No!_

Simon clutched at his head, trying to tear the thoughts that weren’t his right out of his skull. Badly wrong, something was badly wrong and it was like being clothed in dust, coated in ashes and coloured chalk –

He heard a sound like an entire flock of ravens taking flight, a pair of sun-devouring wings spreading wide within his head –

And felt them impeded, checked from unfolding to their full span by some barrier.

If he’d been confused and fearful before, now terror swamped him. Simon whipped around in a circle, disbelief and panic scraping sharp teeth over his jugular – and now that he was looking, with the thick, heavy pressure pressing down on his mind, he could see them. The black designs on the walls weren’t modern art, weren’t even painted; the pictograms were made of black crystal set directly into the wallpaper, a dizzying array of arcane symbols – he recognised the Key of Solomon from _Supernatural_ , but there were more, so many more, circles within circles, septagrams and spiky knots of thorn-and-razor sigils – and he was caught in them. Like a sparrow trapped in a carnivorous hedge, he could feel the vicious, deadly hooks snagging at those ebony wings, knifing deeper the more they – he – struggled; tearing at him, bleeding him, the more he fought the brighter the sigils shone, bars of a cage that was shrinking around him, pressing in on him, forcing his wings to bend or break…

 _Not crystal,_ something whispered. _Lilithium._

“Don’t fight it, Simon,” his lover said. His voice was soft and soothing, like warm velvet. “It’s all right, just let it happen…”

Simon sank to his knees with a groan, dizzy and weak, and he felt his lover’s arm wrap around his waist, keeping Simon from falling off the bed’s dais. He could swear the symbols grew stronger as they worked on him – feeding on him, the thorns embedded in his psyche throbbing like a vampire’s fangs. But it was more than that… As they took, so did they give; ephemeral poison pumped into him with every heartbeat, and as Simon’s limbs grew weighted, trembling with weakness, his blood began to simmer. A warm, heavy sweetness unspooled from the needles stabbing into his chakras, pooling in the pit of his stomach like fine brandy, like adrenalin.

“No,” he whispered, pleading, but no one was listening. No one cared.

Distantly, he felt himself picked up, cradled in strong arms against a rune-kissed chest. His skin was drawing tight, flushing with heat, every artery dilating to speed the spread of the lilithium-born virus, and every cell of his body was pulsing was a pleasure that was pain, a pain that was pleasure. It was so rapidly becoming unbearable, a sugar-coating on his nerves becoming acidic, awful ecstasy –

He fell against the blankets, dropped, and instantly curled in on himself, hugging his knees as he rubbed his cheek against the dark furs. Oh God, God, he needed – he had to get it _out_ , building and burning, eating him alive from the inside – fangs of fire – he could hear laughter, wild and fey, echoing through his head – a howl of triumph spiralling up and up and _up_ as black wings fluttered against the walls of a cage –

He groaned, wrapping his arms around his stomach as he bowed forward. His cheek against the blanket – soft, so soft –

_I I I I I –_

_H-help me –_

“Oh, Simon.” He heard footsteps, felt his lover’s approach and turned to it like a flower to the sun, starved for sensation. “It’s all right, _aoiveae-orshé_. It’s safe. You can’t get past the bindings no matter what you do.”

 _This isn’t right..._ And yet when the callused hand touched his cheek Simon moaned, pushing into the contact desperately. He couldn’t stop himself, even though it hurt, shards and splinters dragging through over-sensitized skin. _What’s..._ “...wrong with me?” he slurred.

A thumb brushed Simon’s lower lip, and it was pain, it hurt beyond words, a note like struck crystal singing through his bones and blood and every cell of his body convulsed with it, sharp and terrible and screaming for more. “It’s the bindings,” his _parastathentes_ said softly. “So you don’t have to be afraid. You can’t hurt anyone. You can be yourself here, _aoiveae-orshé_. You can let go.”

With awful gentleness, the fingers slipped down to his jaw, tenderly turning Simon’s face up and out of the blankets, and Simon was helpless to resist, his nails digging into his arms as his eyes met dark black ones, and somewhere inside he’d already known.

“S-Sebastian,” he choked, and Sebastian smiled.

*

“Through here,” Magnus ordered, holding the door open for Alec and his burden. “Set him down on the bed.”

It was a heavy burden, Alec thought, carefully stepping sideways through the doorway so as not to knock Simon against the frame. Jace might have stayed with Isabelle to handle the mundane police, but Alec could feel his _parabatai_ ’s fear and concern for the boy in his arms like ocean waves; retreating briefly, momentarily, before returning in a bitter rush, helplessly seeking, unstoppable. Simon wasn’t Simon; he was all of Jace’s dreams for the last month. He was Jace’s absences the last few weeks, and his hidden joy; Jace’s clumsy attempts at blocking the bond for hours at a time; the devastated look on Jace’s face when Simon had crumpled like a doll.

He was a hell of a lot more than Jace’s brother.

Alec set him gently down on Magnus’ bed. Even now Alec couldn’t help but notice, with a flutter of jittery warmth, that Magnus had replaced the plain mattress that had been here before with a grandiose four-poster, a ridiculous concoction of crimson and ebony silk that nonetheless made Alec’s mouth go a little dry. It was too easy to imagine how beautiful Magnus’ dark-honey skin would look against all that red and black...

Simon’s head lolled against a pillow, and without thinking Alec cupped his skull to adjust its position so Simon didn’t wake with a wicked crick in his neck. If he woke. Only the rise and fall of his chest gave any sign that he was still alive.

 _He has to wake up._ Alec couldn’t imagine what Jace would do if Simon didn’t.

“You should step back now,” Magnus said, and Alec obeyed, getting out of the warlock’s way – and then standing awkwardly, no longer sure what his purpose here was, not knowing where to look. As Magnus bent over Simon, Alec shoved his hands in his pockets and stole a glance around the room. Magnus had redecorated since Alec had been in here last. A cloud of tiny fairy-lights – chips of witchlight strung on silk threads – hung from the ceiling in a circle around the new bed, a curtain of golden stars that cast light on the newly-painted black walls. A thick black carpet, as fluffy as fur, covered the wooden floor, and the blue dressing table had either been replaced by or turned into a bright pink one, its mirror jewelled with softly glowing light-bulbs.

Alec had never seen anything like it. No Shadowhunter he knew had a room like this, full of things chosen just because they looked nice. He thought of the Lightwood manor in Idris that he’d rarely seen, and the townhouse in Alicante, where he and Izzy and Jace had spent a handful of summers without Alec’s parents. Both places were richly furnished, grand and gleaming with mahogany and marble, and crystal chandeliers that dripped facets like rain. They were beautiful fortresses, meant to impress and intimidate and, in the event of disaster, keep safe the family that dwelt within. But their beauty was a cold beauty, cold and austere, intended as a weapon. Nothing in a Shadowhunter’s life was beautiful just for the sake of beauty.

And those chandeliers had been paid for with warlock blood, Alec thought, feeling sick as Magnus whispered under his breath, gesturing liquidly above Simon’s prone body.

But even as Alec looked over, Simon’s head moved on the pillow, shifting restlessly, feverishly. Magnus’ voice was a soothing ribbon of sound, low and murmuring as he chanted words Alec couldn’t hope to understand, but for all that even Alec could feel the energy building in the room – centred around Simon, like a cage of invisible lightning – whatever the warlock was doing only seemed to be making it worse. Simon’s brow was still slick with sweat, as it had been since they’d portalled to Magnus’ apartment, but now he was panting, his skin flushed red. Magnus traced glowing sigils in the air with a graceful fingertip, and Simon whimpered, a sound like a terrified werewolf cub; he was panting, and his eyes rolled beneath his closed lids, darting back and forth as if he were seeking a way out. But he didn’t wake up.

Alec wanted to ask Magnus exactly what he was doing, but he didn’t want to risk breaking the man’s concentration. Instead he focussed on sending calm reassurance back to Jace.

He received a wave of relief in response, and understood from long experience that his sister and _parabatai_ were done and heading this way.

Simon mumbled something, and Alec’s attention snapped back to the tableau in front of him. “What’s he saying?” he asked softly, hoping that Magnus could bear the interruption.

Magnus didn’t answer. Alec hesitated, unsure whether he should ask again or not – was Magnus ignoring him, or had he not heard the question?

 _“Agé,”_ Simon whispered, and the terrified plea struck Alec’s heart like a shard of ice. The word meant nothing to him, but he’d never heard Simon sound like that – never heard _anyone_ sound like that.

As if he were caught between sobbing and screaming.

 _“Agé, obelis agé – ”_ Simon’s fingers curled into fists in the sheets, and he was still panting, almost hyperventilating, and it was too much, too awful, there was no way Jace could miss Alec’s confused alarm and no way to disguise the cause; strong emotion always strengthened their bond, turned the cord that bound them into a chain and Alec felt Jace’s attention turn towards him, _snap_ towards him like a thrown blade.

_“Agé, gnay ipé, obelis – ”_

It was too much – the fear they shared was a tightrope between them, flinging open the gates of flesh and self and forging a trapdoor that swallowed Jace whole in a dark flash. Alec blinked and Jace was _there_ , sharing his skin, looking out through his eyes in a way that wasn’t supposed to be possible without the battle-trance to bind them. They’d never managed to skindance outside of battle before, and it had never been like this: like a stake slamming into his chest, a pressure beneath his skin that threatened to break him open in a blaze of silver and jade. It was supposed to be natural, smooth and easy like two streams merging into one, but he wasn’t ready and neither was Jace and instead of slotting into place Jace was dragged in where there was no room, all jagged burning edges and the screech of rust-on-rust.

But Jace was terrified, and Alec made himself small within his own body, curling in on himself to give Jace room. This wasn’t skindancing, wasn’t merging into one whole in two bodies to better hunt demonkind; but Jace needed and Alec gave, because he could do nothing less. He gave his skin and his hands, his eyes and ears and lips, his tongue and the throb of his pulse in his veins; because Jace needed them Alec poured them into his grasp as carelessly as if they were buttons or bobbins, common and worthless as dirt.

_Take them, take them all. Take everything you need._

He felt the bright gleam of his _parabatai_ ’s gratitude, and then Jace pulled him on like an ill-fitting glove and moved his lips;

“What’s happening? What’s wrong with him?”

Magnus looked up sharply, his mien that of a startled cat. He opened his mouth to answer – and then his eyes narrowed, suddenly piercing. The warmth drained out of his gaze in an instant.

“I don’t care what he is to you,” the warlock said coldly over Simon’s frenzied murmuring. He turned back to Simon, resuming his spellcasting. “But I don’t work with _gidim_.”

The class of demons capable of possession. The knowledge flashed seamlessly from Alec to Jace and Jace stiffened in Alec’s skin while Alec bristled on his _parabatai_ ’s behalf; it wasn’t possession, it was _channeling,_ he’d _consented_ , and anyway Jace hadn’t intended for this to happen, hadn’t done it on purpose –

“Alec let me in,” Jace said, and it was Alec’s voice but the words were shaped differently, the intonation was all Jace. _(But it wasn’t your voice that told him,_ Alec’s subconscious whispered, _he looked into your eyes and he knew you weren’t the one looking back at him – just from your_ eyes _– )_ “What’s wrong with my brother?”

“The simple answer is that I don’t know,” Magnus answered, and his voice was cool but it emerged through gritted teeth. The inner sides of his hands glowed blue and gold from his wrists to his fingertips, and he held his palms almost against Simon’s temples. “I’m feeding him mana, but his energy levels keep spiking in ways I’ve never seen before; his body is reacting as though he’s been poisoned, but I can’t find any venom; he’s speaking a language I _know_ he doesn’t speak – ”

A memory, Jace’s this time: Magnus in this very room, the night Jace had gone alone with Simon to the Dumort and almost gotten himself killed; _‘I’ve watched you grow up, I’ve been through your memories…’_ Of course Magnus would know what languages Simon spoke, he’d been the one to craft and renew the block on Simon’s mind, but that meant –

What could it mean? How could Simon speak a language he didn’t speak?

“Enochian?” Jace asked before Alec could puzzle it out. His voice – Alec’s voice – sounded strange, even accounting for the person using it.

“Do they teach all you idiot Nephilim your mother-tongue now?” Magnus asked. “How did you know that?”

Jace didn’t answer. “What’s he saying?”

“He’s terrified,” Magnus said bluntly, “and not of me.” He shot a blazing look over his shoulder at Jace. “Go back to your own body and get here as quickly as you can.” It was not a request.

Jace hesitated. He looked down at Simon with Alec’s eyes, and longing sweet and terrible as an _armask_ _ō_ blade pierced Alec through the heart. He couldn’t breathe for the intensity of it; it was as awful as it was incredible, a kind of agony, a kind of ecstasy, a kind of need. He wanted to –

It cut off abruptly, so suddenly that Alec was left reeling.

 _*How do we do this?*_ Jace asked, all business, and Alec could feel him trying to pull away – but after all, they didn’t know how they’d done this in the first place, never mind knowing how to undo it.

 _*I think – *_ Alec hesitantly felt around, and they both saw it in the same moment. In the end it was easier than ending a skindance, because instead of being merged into one mind they were only sharing a body, and Alec grasped the ‘glove’ so that Jace could pull out of it, and they slipped apart in a disorientating rush.

Alec gasped, sucking in air like a man saved from drowning. Holding himself in tight and small to give Jace control had been like holding his breath; his lungs weren’t actually burning from the effort, but something else was, some psychic thing that made the world sway dizzyingly around him as he found his bearings again.

Wordless apology came from Jace, and a matching disorientation; it couldn’t have been any easier for his _parabatai._ What had happened to Jace’s body while he was driving Alec’s?

“He’s gone,” he said quietly, just so Magnus would know.

“Good.” The warlock didn’t turn to look at him this time, remaining focussed on Simon.

Alec wanted to ask how Magnus had known it was Jace wearing Alec’s skin, how he had been able to tell who he was talking to from a single glance. But the lines of Magnus’ back were tensed, his shoulders bunched tight beneath the violet velvet jacket he’d worn for their date, and Alec didn’t think Magnus needed the distraction right now. Instead, silently, he came to sit down on the bed behind Magnus and reached for the warlock’s shoulders.

Magnus jerked a little with surprise as Alec touched him, but didn’t protest as Alec began kneading the cruel knots in his shoulders. He relaxed under Alec’s hands almost immediately, allowing the contact, and Alec felt a warm glow of pleased pride.

He said nothing as he unpicked the knots in the warlock’s muscles one by one, smoothing them away as he’d done for Jace and Izzy for years. But he was terribly aware, despite everything, that this was the closest they’d been since that first kiss, and that they were sitting on Magnus’ bed.

Embarrassed by the direction his thoughts were taking – how could he think like this, when Jace’s brother was so badly hurt just inches away? – he glanced past Magnus to Simon – and noticed something that had been so unremarkable to Jace that his _parabatai_ had taken no note of it; Simon was bloodstained and his throat marked with the grip of Abigor’s fingers, but above those bruises were others, and they had been made by human teeth.

*

“Now, where were we?” Sebastian asked. He climbed onto the bed, his eyes fixed on Simon in a way that made Simon think of tigers – Sebastian was no lion, he was a Siberian tiger, biggest of the big cats, the most powerful land predator in the world – “Oh, yes. We were going through the Marks you’ve drawn on me, weren’t we?”

Simon shook his head in denial, panting for breath; _no, this isn’t right, leavemealone,_ but Sebastian ignored him. His _parastathentes_ caught Simon’s right hand like a manacle, so hard that Simon’s wrist twinged with pain. “This one,” he murmured. He pulled Simon’s hand towards his own collarbone, to the rune placed like a seal over Sebastian’s sternum. “Do you remember this one, dearling?”

It was – at first Simon thought it was a _desviar_ Mark, a _block_ , but no, it wasn’t. This Mark had a stronger, louder song than _desviar_ – it was permanent, where _desviar_ was temporary. But it was almost, almost the same... The mystery made Simon forget his unease, pierced through the choking fog of toxic desire. It was like hearing a song by your favourite artist covered by an orchestra-and-choir; the core was familiar, but now it made the hairs on your arms stand up, a spine-shivering sound like a Mark Petrie track –

“What is that?” Simon asked. _That’s not what_ desviar _sounds like..._

Another shock of memory: his hand against someone else’s arm, pale against honey-gold skin, and a strange foreign word that felt like home – _aikane –_

It slipped away like wind through his fingers. His _parastathentes_ ’s skin was darker than Simon’s but it wasn’t that gold, not like that, and the Mark under his hand didn’t call itself _desviar_ , its name was –

 _“Vernda,”_ Simon whispered.

 _Shield_.

“And this one.” Before Simon could understand it, could make sense of what he was hearing from the unfamiliar rune – newness and strangeness, a perfection that caught his breath and a strength to stop bullets – his lover tugged Simon’s hand again, pulling it to the _parastathentes_ rune over his heart –

And it was like dying. The bond between them flooded open in a drowning rush and it was a sword thrusting into his heart, black and burning as if new-forged, cutting through every layer of skin and self-awareness straight to his core. Pierced, impaled, sliced open and bared and it was like falling into ebony fire, drowning in it; pried open with smouldering black velvet swallowing him whole, the terrible softness caressing every inch of his skin, slipping into the crater of his chest and satin ribbons parting his lips like tongues, flooding into him, snaking down his throat and flicking switches as they went, onetwothree in a dizzying wave of locks snapping open, fourfivesix _seven_ , failsafes coming down, door after door blown wide open like a prison-break and the blade’s in so deep but not to slay, no, to open the way instead, cleaving through the bars that keep him caged and he can’t scream, can’t tell if it’s agony or ecstasy or both or neither. Benzoin incense in his lungs like smoke and silver chains looping in moonlight whorls snapping like spun sugar and nightmare wings folding around him, clasping him close holding him tight and it’s terror, it’s freedom, absinthe and sandalwood and _I have you, I know you,_ held so tight and jade lightning strike-strike-striking and crystal canines sliding so sweetly into his neck, like kisses, like stars he can’t stand it, jewels wreathing his wrists and his blood spilling, falling, dripping into the darkness drop by sizzling golden drop and the triumph isn’t his but it’s thick as smoke, engulfing him from every side, triumph and midnight jubilance calling him out, summoning, the gate is _open_ –

 _*Goh an gis vonsarg orst ds goh apamnayz biat_ , _*_ his lover whispered through the dark, the words not Enochian gold but tarnished silver and steel, rust-kissed but familiar enough, _I know your every shadow and I stand here unflinching,_ Simon understood and his free hand was in his lover’s hair, clinging, drowning, it was like a choke collar coming free, the unspeakable _relief! *Zir ix ciasin.*_

_I am not afraid._

Violated, desecrated, some vital human skin ripped open and left bleeding and Simon didn’t _care_. He could _breathe_ , as if his humanity had been suffocating him, a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying and he nearly cried with the reprieve. He didn’t have to be afraid here, not even of himself; there was a greater darkness than he and it had him, he could feel its wings still wrapped around him, nothing he could do would break through that hold and it was such a _release_ , it was _okay_. He didn’t have to fight, didn’t have to hide – he was held, acknowledged, cherished, prized – he could give himself up, give it _all_ up.

“Sebastian,” he gasped, the sound almost a sob as it tore out of him, “Sebastian – ”

 _“Niisor, odrax esach,”_ Sebastian murmured – commanded. _Come forth, little brother;_ Simon could feel the imperative wrap like iron around his bones – _“Liis chi ozien. Niisor!”_

_You are mine. Come forth!_

Simon screamed, and _let go_.

He fell; he plunged down through the broken shards of his cage and the scream caught in his throat and became a roar, a harpy’s shriek of rage and triumph. He could have fallen forever but his wings unfolded with a Tartarus-snap and the sheer _power_ , the glorious void-kissed _rush!_ Indescribable-unspeakable, lit up like a sun and he surged up, spiralling in a whirlwind-streak, all star-studded glory and diamondfire and he –

Crashed into his lover’s mouth and felt himself _met_ , half-knocked out of the sky by a platinum meteor. The shock was – stunning, shattering, he crowed with wild surprise and fervent joy, vicious, bloodthirsty excitement. Strength to strength he flung himself against this _other_ , this one who knew him-matched him, and he felt his _para_ ’s lips curve into a smirk against his, felt the challenge flash between them like a game of apocalypse. Simon wanted pain, ached to rend and sear and sleeve his arms in blood, wanted fire and wanted to _rule_ –

“You want it?” his lover breathed against his mouth, and his lust beat like black waves against Simon’s mind, oil and ink, “Then fight for it, my little _fabaznil_ , my _aoiveae-orshé – ”_

Game on.

Simon’s nails slashed over Sebastian’s back merciless-deep, hard and sharp as razors. Wetness greeted him, the perfume of copper and rust and he kicked out, twisting, a panther’s low snarl tearing out of his throat as he sought to fling the other man from atop him –

And Sebastian slammed him back down against the mattress, pinning his hips expertly, catching and shoving Simon’s hands down against the nest of pillows, his _strength!_ Simon’s spine bowed without permission, arching upwards with a desperate, hungry gasp; it wasn’t a loss, it was perfect, an unholy, blissful thrill of being bested, _mastered_. Pleasure like magma uncoiled through his veins, slow and thick and heady, unbearable, unimpeachable, and it was safety and it was desire, a vicious need for that force, that power, to feel it and be possessed by it. He could throw himself against it for centuries and it would not break, would it? It would hold him, _could_ hold him, and far from inciting fear it only excited him more –

He bucked hard, just to test it, but Sebastian’s grip only tightened and Simon hissed, tossing his head back at the sensation, his bones grinding together beneath the skin and the hurt was white, terrible, blinding, perfect white and blood was trickling down his _parastathentes’_ shoulders, little threads of crimson winding down his arms. Simon leaned up and licked it, deliberately scraping skin with his teeth, and Sebastian’s low, breathless laughter made his stomach clench tight.

His teeth _crunched_ down and blood flooded into his mouth, human teeth could cut bone in the right circumstances and Sebastian snarled like the earth tearing. He jerked back and Simon let him go, slipped his hold and snatched a dagger from beneath his pillow, twisting beneath the older Shadowhunter and thrusting the knife at Sebastian’s neck – only for his wrist to be smashed away but his other elbow slammed into his _para_ ’s throat and when Sebastian reared back to breathe Simon snapped his legs back and kicked him, both feet to the other’s man’s stomach and throwing him back. Simon scrambled upright, his palms slipping on the dark silk sheets as he spun for the edge of the bed, run run _run_ and he was panting with excitement, snatches of breathless laughter susurrating between each gasp of air  –

The mattress shifted just slightly and he heard the soft whistle of something cutting fast through air, glimpsed something black and shining like a necklace of night before it looped tight around his throat and _jerked_. Simon’s hands flew to his neck with a gasp and he was choking, wrenched backwards against a hard, solid chest and the line of metal a shriek of fire across the line of his neck, biting at his windpipe, and he was so fucking turned on he could hardly see.

“Is that all you’ve got, _aoiveae-orshé?”_ His _parastathentes_ purred in his ear, and Simon moaned, tipping his head back as his lover’s hand twisted, holding the chain around Simon’s throat like the reins of a bridle. “Is that the best you can do?”

There were bracelets of bruises around Simon’s wrists, fingerprints pressed like dark jewels into his pale skin; the bedside light licked over them and Simon _snarled_ , tipping his head back against Sebastian’s shoulder, lips wet and open because yes, this was it, they’d done this before.

 _He keeps you safe,_ his gossamer memory whispered, _keeps you anchored. You wear his marks like gems and every time you touch them you know who you are –_

_His. You have always been his._

There were runes on Simon’s palms, on his fingertips, and he knew that if he could only remember what they were for he could get out of this, _you don’t need a weapon you_ are _a weapon_ , but so much of him wanted to stay right where he was. And yet instinct made him struggle, pulling at the slim chain around his neck and fighting to break free, to get air, to escape and turn the tables because the urge to rip out Sebastian’s throat was stronger than the need for oxygen, the need to _scream_ –

Using the chain Sebastian jerked him back, shaking him like an errant puppy. _“Liis chi ozien,_ Simon.” The words were low and dark like poisoned honey, and the grip on the chain stayed harsh and cruel, and Simon shuddered with sick, sharp-toothed bliss, a whimper catching in his throat as the truth of it melted through his bones. _You are mine._ God, it was beyond words – so fucking hot, twisted up so tight inside; the other man’s runes singing against Simon’s back and he _couldn’t stand it_ , held pinned for his lover’s pleasure – _“Liis jahalantz paít cak ozien.”_

_You will always be mine._

_“Vaoan,”_ Simon whispered, his eyes falling shut.

_Yes._

Without releasing his grip on Simon’s neck, Sebastian shoved him down against the mattress, pressing his face into the slick sheets like he was something Sebastian meant to break. The motion pressed their hips together hard, sliding Sebastian’s cock through the cheeks of Simon’s ass and Simon moaned, his nails raking through the fabric under his fingers. He was gasping for breath and his mind was swimming, simmering, all heat and gold and junkie-craving. Somewhere the sigils on the walls were glowing, but he couldn’t remember why he should care –

He was already slick, left-over from the night before, and if he could have breathed past the chain around his throat he would have howled when his lover’s cock teased him, sliding back and forth so fucking slowly, torturing, catching just a little on the rim of Simon’s hole with each pass. Empty, empty-empty-empty and every cell of his body was swollen and wet and ready, needy, frantic, vicious: he twisted, fighting Sebastian’s hold just to feel the burn of being held, the choking lock around his neck and the bone-melting relief of not having to hold back or be afraid of what he might do – it was indescribable, blissful, green gunpowder and white fire, mulled wine and sharp steel; it was safe, _he_ was safe, he could let it all go and be a monster because Sebastian had him mastered –

 _“Gohvs zt,”_ Sebastian ordered; _say it_ , and Simon snarled, helplessly dripping pre-come onto the sheets as Sebastian ran his thumb down the crease of him, prying him open and teasing the hot wet throb of need. “Say you’re mine, and I’ll give you everything you need.”

Before Simon could draw a breath – to deny it or scream it, there was no telling – Sebastian slid two fingers into him smooth as silk, sudden and thick and _oh, no,_ too much and not enough and Simon jerked up out of the blankets with a sobbing gasp, needing the air, pushing back against his lover’s hand desperately, the _sounds_ coming out of him –

“I’ll collar you with your own halo, _fabaznil,”_ Sebastian murmured. “Just say the words, and I’ll make sure _this_ never happens.”

The chain fell loose around Simon’s neck as Sebastian let it go, abruptly tangling his fingers in Simon’s hair and wrenching his head back, up out of the sheets, making him _look_ –

The sheets under his hands weren’t silk. They were slippery because they were _wet_.

Simon looked past his cage of sigil-wrought lust and saw Jace lying there, still and cold with his throat torn out, his blood staining the sheets and flavouring Simon’s teeth, dripping from his lips, and Simon screamed and screamed and screamed.

*

Simon _screamed_ , a sudden sharp sound that sliced the room in two. Alec jumped and Magnus swore in Hindi; the glow around his hands grew twice as bright but Simon writhed and the light stuttered, flickering like strobelights and Simon didn’t _stop_ , screamed and screamed as if his heart was being torn from his chest, the flashes of magic casting shadows over his eyes and gaping mouth and rictus face and the _sound_ like broken glass in Alec’s ears, sick and familiar – Alec knew that timbre too well, recognised it down in his bones, the horror of having darkness woven in among your veins and the desperation of wanting it _out_ , _needing_ it out, oh Raziel please don’t let Abbadon have him, don’t let –

No, wait, that was before – Abbadon’s was gone and it wasn’t Alec screaming this time – it was Simon and he was crying out endlessly, fear and tragedy and horror-horror-somebody-make-it-stop, and Magnus’ spell pulsing in and out, on and off and light was spilling out from beneath Simon’s sleeve, sunlight beaming brighter and brighter, spilling out around his wrist –

Alec heard a grinding _crack_ and whipped his head towards the sound, looked away from Simon and Magnus to see the arterial fault lines slithering through the glass of the window, fracturing the mirror on the dressing table –

“Simon, no!” Magnus shouted, trying to be heard but Simon couldn’t hear him, didn’t wake, whipped his hands up and raked his nails across his skull, his face, tearing open raw red tracks to mirror the mirror and Alec dove for him, half lying on him as he fought to wrestle Simon’s hands away from his face, nails dripping blood and Alec’s head ringing like a struck bell from the screaming and Simon twisting and jerking under him like a man possessed, and he was shrieking words that made no sense, _“Yolci t vors ol, yolci t vors ol!”_ over and over and Alec should have been able to pin him easily but instead Simon was almost throwing him off, stronger than he should have been, stronger than he possibly _could_ be –

And the light from Simon’s wrist was almost blinding –

Alec shoved Simon’s sleeve down and there it was, an _enkeli_ Mark emblazoned in liquid gold on his forearm, bisected by scars that could only have come from an _alligatura_ rune but glowing, burning as runes could not burn –

_What are you –_

And every pane of glass exploded.

*

“This is your future, _aoiveae-orshé,”_ Sebastian said softly, his lips pressed to Simon’s ear and his words were blades as Simon’s screams crumpled into desperate, broken sobs. _No, Jace, n-n-no please Jace what have I, I’m sorry so sorry **Jace**! _ “This is _his_ future. You can’t keep this from happening, you can’t prevent this. Someday soon you’ll tear him apart and laugh while he bleeds, because he’s not strong enough to leash you and he never will be. And the darkness in you will always reject that which cannot be your equal. Violently.”

He turned Simon’s face to his and kissed him hard, and all Simon could taste was rust and salt, blood and tears, his heart breaking under the picture Jace’s body made hollow and empty on the bed.

Sebastian sighed. “You don’t even know what you are,” he murmured. He stroked his thumb over Simon’s cheek. “Come to me,” he ordered, in a voice that was velvet and steel, “or you’ll destroy everything you’ve ever loved.”

He smirked. “Just like this,” he said, and Simon couldn’t look away from Jace’s blank-empty-dead eyes but he felt the sigils on the walls – the _wards,_ they were _wards_ – come crashing down like the walls of Jericho.

And the thing inside him rushed up out of its broken cage with a roar to shake the world.

*

A hailstorm of glass ripped through the room and Alec’s arm darted out to snatch Magnus and drag him down onto the bed, dropping and rolling so it that was Alec’s back to the window and Magnus pressed up against his chest, safe from the flying shards. Alec caught the saffron-scent of Magnus’ magic and something more, something richer and deeper caught in the other man’s hair where it brushed Alec’s face; salt and flowers, figs and sea-spray, and Alec just wanted to breathe it in and in and in –

The screaming had stopped. Threads of fire lashed Alec’s back where shards had sliced through his shirt, but they were easy to ignore, far easier than the warm solidity of Magnus’ body fitted against his.

Alec panted, wondering if it was over, if it was safe to move. If the pulse in Magnus’ throat had a taste, if it would melt like maple sugar under his lips.

He swallowed hard. “Are you okay?” he asked hoarsely.

He felt Magnus nod. “I’m fine,” the warlock said quietly, but he didn’t try to move. His chest was rising and falling rapidly beneath Alec’s forearm. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Alec whispered. His heart was a bronze bell in his chest, ringing and ringing.

But as his own breath stilled – he didn’t dare to breathe, to break this fragile moment landed in his palms like a flake of snow – he heard someone else’s; heavy, panicked panting, and he remembered Simon.

He let go of Magnus, forgetting to regret, and pushed himself up. “Simon?” he asked, not sure whether to be wary or concerned. Now that he didn’t have the press of Magnus’ body to distract him, he noticed that his skin itched – a shivery, restless kind of itching, as if electricity were brushing up and down over his body. Not all over, but gathered here and there on his skin, almost as if –

Simon’s hands were held over his face. There was blood on his nails, smeared over his fingertips like paint, and between short, racing pants he was whispering something, a rapid stream of words that slipped past Alec’s understanding like vampires fleeing the sun. Alec frowned, instinctively trying to make sense of it; it wasn’t English, not Spanish or French or Russian, not Hindi or German or Persian, Romanian, Swahili, or Greek. He was fairly certain it wasn’t Mandarin or Japanese, although he knew those less well and couldn’t really be sure; it didn’t match any of the demonic languages he’d learned with Hodge…

The only word he recognised was _Sebastian._

It was only a second, a moment. He heard Magnus move behind him, shifting on the bed as Alec reached out to touch Simon’s shoulder. He called Simon’s name again, aware of Jace’s tightrope-taut attention at the edges of his self –

And recoiled, cursing, as Simon’s hands fell from his face. He scrambled off the bed, wrenching a seraph blade from his belt and invoking it with a whip-crack snap of vowels, _“Ariel,”_ revulsion and disbelief threatening to overcome him as all the pieces – all the hundreds of pieces – suddenly fell into place.

Because Simon’s eyes were black as ichor, and it explained _everything_.

 

 

* * *

 

NOTES

 

A note on the leech from Yggdrasil line – there are leeches who CLIMB TREES so that they can ATTACK FROM ABOVE. I am not kidding. Look it up.

 

 _Agé_ – no (Enochian)

 

 _Agé, obelis agé_ – no, please no (Enochian)

_Agé, gnay ipé, obelis_ – no, don’t, please (Enochian)

 

 _Aoiveae-orshé_ – dark star (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

 

 _Gidim_ is an ancient Sumerian word, referring to demons who brought disease. They are the first spirits mentioned to possess humans.

 

Benzoin, wormwood (absinthe) and sandalwood are all used for summoning spirits.

 

 _Goh an gis vonsarg orst ds goh apamnayz biat_ – I know your every shadow and I stand unflinching (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

 

 _Zir ix ciasin_ – I am not afraid (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

 

 _Niisor, odrax esach. Liis chi ozien. Niisor!_ – Come forth, little brother. You are mine. Come forth! (demonic/corrupted Enochian). A note on this: before people are convinced that Sebastian = Jonathan Morgenstern, please remember that the angel in Simon's vision after the fight with Abbadon also called Simon 'brother'. It doesn't mean the same thing in Enochian that it does in English.

 

 _Liis jahalantz paít cak ozien_ – You will always exist as mine/You will always be mine (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

 

 _Vaoan_ – truth/yes (Enochian)

 

 _Gohvs zt_ – say it (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

 

 _Yolci t vors ol_ – Get it out of me (Enochian)

 

 _Alligatura_ is the name I have given to the binding runes Hodge used on Simon (and which the Inquisitor uses on Jace in _City of Ashes_ ); i.e., the runes that look like flames and are used as handcuffs on criminals. Basically, I got frustrated that only a few of the canon runes have ‘angelic’ names (at least ones that we know)(I’m talking about _enkeli_ for angelic power, _iratze_ for one of the healing Marks, etc) so I went through and gave them all names. I will probably post the full list on my tumblr at some point!

 

Ariel is an angel of protection, whose name means ‘lion of God’.


	4. The Creature on the Waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter goes out to dead-world-problems on tumblr, because she dared me to.

Catarina tapped the neat earpiece in her right ear without taking her gaze away from the diagnostics chart in her hand. “Loss speaking.”

She frowned at the unfamiliar voice, lowering her chart as she focussed on the phone call. “Who is this?”

The answer made her stiffen. The message that followed—brief and concise though it was—was worse; words she had never expected—or wanted—to hear in her lifetime flowed into her ear like mercury, cold and toxic and terrible.

The caller hung up without waiting for her response. Catarina barely noticed. She set her chart down on the counter and stared at it sightlessly, trying to comprehend what she’d just been told—and what it would mean for them all.

She glanced at the clock. Luke Garroway should still be upstairs, visiting his mate in room 444; he always stayed until visiting hours ended at 9pm. At least she wouldn’t have far to go.

Pausing only to let one of the other nurses know that she was taking a break, the blue-skinned warlock headed up the stairs to call on the fealty of one who had never expected to be called on.

One whom none of them had ever expected to call on.

*

“Alec,” Magnus said quietly, “put the blade down.”

“Why?” Alec’s voice emerged cool and brittle, and he didn’t look away from Simon’s black eyes.

Simon didn’t seem inclined to stop looking at him, either.

“Because nothing good can come of using it,” Magnus said more sharply, and Alec was already miles ahead of him, already racing to a finish line that made no sense: _he’s possessed/no he can’t be Nephilim can’t be/he was raised a mundane maybe his mother never had the birth-ritual done/if it was a demon it would have gone for my throat by now, it would never lie still and quiet and watchful –_

_He’s Jace’s heart, I can’t hurt him –_

Without warning Simon jack-knifed upright, sitting up so that his face was only inches from Alec’s even after Alec reflexively jerked back. He couldn’t make out any expression in that eerie gaze—it was as if the boy’s pupils had swollen and swallowed up everything, irises and whites both gone in a wash of ink—but Simon slowly tilted his head to one side, as if considering him.

“I know you,” Simon murmured. A whispering echo seemed to follow his words, a shivering hum, and the strands of witch-light around the bed trembled and the soft glow slid over Simon’s face and Alec saw that Simon’s eyes weren’t black at all—they were _blue_ , deepest blue like the sky at night, and like a midnight sky they were full of stars, specks and motes that glittered like diamonds, countlessly, endlessly—

It was as though gravity had lost hold of him—as if he were falling from the surface of the Earth into space, into the Milky Way—

“Alexander,” Simon whispered. “Defender of mankind. _Oel ngati kameie.”_ He reached up to touch Alec’s face, and Alec couldn’t move, couldn’t remember why he should want to move as Simon’s fingertip lightly traced a circle around each of his eyes. _“Allarin,”_ Simon breathed, and there was wonder in it, a kind of joyous awe that made no sense at all but spilled light all through Alec’s chest, spilled until he was overflowing with it—

“Oh, I see,” Simon said, staring at him. “Yes.” He grinned suddenly, the wicked playfulness at odds with those unearthly eyes. “You’re going to need this later,” he said, and then his hand curled around Alec’s neck and his mouth was suddenly –

Suddenly –

Alec had never wanted to kiss Simon. Not ever. Not once. Simon was maddening and stupid-stubborn and horrifically dangerous to keep around, between his lack of training and the way he tied Jace up in constrictor knots, and Alec had never wanted to know what his lips tasted like. So when Simon’s mouth met his Alec tried to jerk back, too aware, sickeningly aware of Magnus right there and Jace between them like a wall of _adamas_ —but Simon’s fingers were stone and held him still with terrifying ease and it was nothing like kissing Magnus, nothing like—there was no heat to it, no passion, chaste as a sibling’s kiss _(the irony nearly choked him)_ without tongue or teeth, and when Simon’s lips parted against his it was only –

Only –

_Oh—by the Angel—_

He _sang_ —Simon sang into his mouth and it made no sense, couldn’t be possible, but Alec gasped and inhaled it and tasted lightning, tasted gold, tasted a sowing of stars that plunged down his throat like comets and streaked through his entire body, trailing gleaming white fire, making of him a sky, spinning a new constellation in his head and on his tongue, his lips—his _heart_ , newly seeded with novae and aching beneath the astriferous graving, gleaming and gleaming—

Wait. _Wait_ —

He saw Magnus’ hands close over Simon’s wrists, trying to pull him away; could distantly hear the warlock shouting, and then everything went white and Alec was gone.

*

_Searing white tore across a black sky, dazzling and blinding, and Alec flung up a hand to cover his eyes._

_When the light passed, he lowered his arm._

_He was standing on a pier of_ adamas _, the seraphic crystal clear as glass beneath his feet. And beneath that, water as dark and impenetrable as the river Lethe roiled and lashed—but this was no river. An ocean of black water stretched on as far as Alec could see, not calm but storming, raging at the sky, the earth, everyone and everything. Wind knifed through his clothing, bitter and sharp and nearly strong enough to knock him off the narrow pier._

_Behind him there was only a shore of crimson sand, bounded by impossibly tall cliffs that sparked like black opal when the lightning flashed. There was no escape that way._

_But more safety than out here on the pier, surely. Trying to stay calm, he began to turn towards the beach, wondering if he could find a cave or some other shelter from the storm, when between one breath and the next he saw a light out on the water._

_He stopped. It was a humanoid figure woven out of shifting light, standing on the waves as if on solid stone. It had its back to him, but Alec recognised its silhouette._

“Simon?” _Alec whispered, stunned. Then, louder, to be heard over the storm:_ “Simon!”

 _It turned its head to look at him, and—no. Not Simon at all. Or—confusion whirled like the winds around them, because the face it turned on him was_ almost _Simon’s, and yet—and yet not. The lines of its face were sharper, smooth and graceful as a well-made knife, and impossibly genderless, as if Simon’s maleness had been stripped away and the result honed with a diamond edge. Its hands rested in the pockets of Simon’s jeans, and it wore Simon’s jacket, but not his glasses; its skin gleamed poreless in the flashes of the storm, poreless and woven of ever-shifting light—golden and silver, ebony and pearlescent, curling and kissing like oil and water forced to co-exist. Simon’s brown hair was gone, replaced with a long mane streaked in night and lightning, living ribbons of glowing light and deep darkness that whipped in the wind._

_The Simon Alec had last glimpsed had had black—galaxy-blue—eyes dusted with stars; this one stared at him with eyes like suns flecked with jet._

_Alec took a step back, reaching for a seraph blade that wasn’t there._ “You’re not him,” _he whispered, and the creature smiled._

 _The expression made Alec’s heart lurch. The creature was perfect—too perfect._ Inhumanly _perfect. It was beautiful, but its was the beauty of a lightning bolt: glorious and terrible, incandescent and cataclysmic. Nothing you could touch, or hold, or tame, or love._

_It was a beauty made for fear, not desire._

_As if it could hear his thoughts, the creature looked away, tipping its head back and directing those blinding eyes up at the sky._ “It’s complicated,” _it said, and the wind still roared but the creature’s voice carried effortlessly._

 _It looked back at Alec._ “And this isn’t about him. This is about you.”

“Me?” _What could this thing—like no demon he’d ever heard of or read about, brilliant and awful as one of the seraphim—want with_ Alec?

 _It held out a hand._ “Come here.”

 _Alec stared._ “I can’t.” _He glanced down, seeing the end of the pier just inches from his feet, then looked out to where the creature stood amidst the waves._ “I can’t walk on the water.”

_It just waited, its hand still extended._

_What was this? A dream? There had never been seers in the Lightwood line, but this could only be some kind of vision—or a hallucination._

_Maybe there had been demon blood on Simon’s lips. Maybe this was nothing more than a fever-dream caused by the ichor of a Greater Demon._

_But deep down, Alec didn’t believe it._

_He stepped off the edge of the pier._

*

 _Ah, Jocelyn,_ Luke thought sadly, gently rubbing Jocelyn’s limp hand between both his own, _how in Raziel’s name did we end up here?_

The sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital room irritated his nose, and the dry air made his eyes burn, but he ignored both discomforts. It would take far more than that to keep him from Jocelyn’s side. Ever since she’d been admitted to the Beth Israel—the only hospital in the state safe for Downworlders, since it was the only one with a warlock on call—Luke had come every day to see her, arriving after he’d closed up the bookstore and staying until visiting hours ended at eight.

Simon didn’t.

Since Simon had run away, Luke had only seen him four times; once at the police station, once when he’d arrived to see Jocelyn and Simon had already been in her room, and two glimpses around corners in the hospital corridors. He would think that Simon had stopped visiting his mother, except that every time Luke walked into Jocelyn’s room Simon’s scent was there waiting for him.

Simon had worked out what time Luke arrived from the store, and now left before that. Nearly every day.

Luke sighed. He had no idea what to do about Simon.

_“You can’t even look at me.” Disgust. Contempt. And a catch in his breath like a sob. “Fucking look at me, Luke!”_

He hadn’t looked. How could he? He’d been more of a father to Simon than Valentine could ever dream of being, but after that night…

_“Don’t worry. It was Clary’s copy that got burnt. Your precious Cup is safe and fucking sound.”_

_“For a minute there, I thought you really were going to give it to Valentine.”_

_“I was.”_

They’d planned the con at the pack house; switching the card that held the Mortal Cup for a fake hurriedly painted by Clary. But Simon had almost abandoned the plan. The thought made Luke sick; for Jace’s sake, Simon had nearly handed over a weapon that, in Valentine’s hands, might have brought the whole world to its knees.

Only Jace’s word had held Simon back at the brink.

That was more than a crush. It was more than confused hormones and adrenalin forging lust like a lightning strike; a quick flash, there and then gone. What bound Simon and Jace was something sick, something radioactive that tore atom from atom and poisoned the earth for a hundred years after. Of course Simon needed help! How could he not have seen that? To have fallen into something so terrifyingly intense in a matter of days—how could he think that was normal? Healthy? It would have been disturbing—and dangerous—even if he and Jace hadn’t been related.

But somehow Simon hadn’t seen what Luke did. Luke had tried to take him to people who could help—and Simon had leapt from the car, vanishing into the maze of city streets before Luke could catch him up and explain.

He’d been on the phone with his pack, arranging for his wolves to search out Simon—the boy was seventeen years old, Raziel only knew what could happen to him in the city on his own at that time of night—when the mundane police had shown up. Some idiot had seen Simon jump from the car, caught a glimpse of his injuries, and given the cops Luke’s plate. As if he would ever lay a hand on Jocelyn’s son!

That argument hadn’t done much to convince them. Especially once they discovered that Luke had brought an unconscious Jocelyn to the hospital just the night before. Luke could see it in their eyes, smell it on their skin: they thought he’d been the one to do that to her. They thought he was a monster.

_‘You are the legal guardian? And how did you obtain guardianship, exactly?’_

And when they’d finally tracked down Simon—Luke had given them Clary’s address; where else would Simon go?—Valentine’s son had walked into the station as coolly as his father would have. As if nothing could touch him because the world was already his.

 _‘You can pay Mrs. Fray to house me, or you can go to jail.’_ _His eyes had been flint. ‘Do not pass Go, do not collect 200.’ He smiled, sharp and bitter as aniseed. ‘The cops are very interested in how I collected all these new scars, Luke. Should I tell them?’_

_‘I’m not your enemy, Simon.’_

_‘Correction: you weren’t my enemy. Now?’ Flint. Flint and ice. ‘Even Valentine didn’t try to tell me I needed fixing. So congrats. You just topped the genocidal megalomaniac on my hit list. Would you like the complimentary keychain?’_

_‘Simon, you’re—’_

_‘If the next word that comes out of your mouth is some variation of “sick”, “confused” or Flash forbid, “troubled”, I’m going to go in there and destroy your life.’ That smile again. Dark as an oil spill. ‘You really don’t want to go to mundane jail as a child abuser, Luke. I realise that Shadowhunters have different views on these things, but in this part of the world, even the serial killers will rip you apart.’_

_He tilted his head. ‘Unless one of the Nephilim executes you first. Can’t risk a werewolf in the mundane prison system, can we? What if they figured out you weren’t normal?’_

Luke had seen pictures of Adele Fairchild before she married Jocelyn’s father, from when she was still Adele Nightshade. Simon looked just like her, like Adele remade into maleness. He had never looked like Valentine; not for one second from the moment he’d been born had he ever resembled his father.

But sitting there in the police station, any quiet, private doubts Luke might have had about Simon’s parentage died whimpering. Listening to Simon was like listening to a seventeen year old Valentine; a young man hurt and sick, lit from within by a rage that could consume worlds if it was just given the chance.

What was he supposed to do now? Simon had spun the cops a story and Luke had escaped with his liberty, but the police had been by to see Elaine and Clary’s mother now refused to let Luke anywhere near her home, never mind her children. Without Jocelyn, Luke didn’t know what to do, what to say. He didn’t know how to make anyone understand the danger none of them seemed able to see.

“Mr. Graymark.”

It was not a question. Luke looked up, surprised to be interrupted; more surprised because he hadn’t heard the interruption coming.

But of course, if a warlock didn’t want you to know they were coming, you didn’t.

Luke gently lowered Jocelyn’s hand, then rose to his feet. “Loss _ashipu.”_ He bowed his head. He didn’t know what the title meant, only that it was what warlocks were always called among Downworlders, a term of respect intrinsic to the delicate equilibrium of Downworlder courtesy. _Warlock_ was a word only used among the Nephilim. “Have you found a cure?”

“No. I’m afraid I’m not here about Jocelyn.”

Luke raised his head. He had heard of those among Lilith’s Children whose devil marks—the sign of their Infernal parentage—were more obviously monstrous, men and women with the tails of giant scorpions or mouths full of shark teeth, but to him Catarina’s blue skin and milk-white hair were just as eerie and unnatural as a hulder’s hollow back. That she chose to wear a necklace of larimar beads—the shade matching her skin tone exactly—at her throat seemed to him a grotesque joke.

Her lapis eyes were unreadable, and he hastily tried to make a mask of his expression, hoping she hadn’t caught wind of his thoughts. “Then why—?”

She held up a hand to cut him off. “Lucian Graymark, in exchange for permission to reside in Magnus Bane’s territory, you swore an oath of service.”

Luke’s spine seemed to calcify beneath his skin. “That oath is just an old ritual,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything. No warlock has called on it in centuries.”

“In Magnus’ name, I am doing so.” Her expression gave nothing away. “Do you refuse to answer?”

“I…” He glanced down at Jocelyn’s sleeping form. “Can I stay in the city if I don’t?”

Catarina’s expression turned momentarily wry. “If you anger Magnus, you won’t be able to stay anywhere on the east coast.”

“Then yes, I answer.” He had no choice. Not when being banished meant abandoning Jocelyn and Simon both.

It was possibly that the warlock relaxed minutely, but Luke couldn’t be sure. “Good. This is what we want you to do.”

*

 _As Alec stepped forward, ribbons of_ adamas _darted out before his feet and braided into a seamless extension of the pier; instead of pitching forward into the dark waters, his foot landed safely on solid crystal. The process repeated itself with every step, and Alec’s heart was pounding fit to burst in his chest as he drew closer to the creature that was as much shadow as light. It neither blinked nor moved as it waited for him, only its inhuman hair ever-shifting in the vicious wind._

_He knew in his bones that it would wait for as long as it took him to cross the waves. It would wait forever for him, if it needed to._

_If he needed it to._

_Its hand, when he took it, was like warm glass._

_Its fingers clasped around his wrist, strong and safe. It smiled at him, just a little, and he felt it like a flame leaping in his chest._

“Now look.” _With its other hand, it pointed to the water in front of them, and Alec looked._

_The waves spiralled. As slowly as dripping honey, a whirlpool formed at their feet, spinning into infinity. They stood on the very lip of it, and as Alec watched a series of images bled across its darkness, growing clearer and stronger as the whirlpool grew more powerful, more dangerous._

_But it could not be as terrible as what it showed them._

_An army of demons spreading across Idris like a stain, like a virus, black and terrible and terrifying. Fire sweeping across fields of golden grain, driving Nephilim civilians screaming into the arms of the monsters awaiting them. Children too young to be Marked ripped apart like paper dolls, scribing horror on the earth in crimson ink. Towns become pyres, the sulphurous smoke staining the sky. The sweet green of Idris poisoned with ashes and blood._

“What is this?” _Alec whispered. He wanted to pull away, wanted to dive into the pool, to get away from this and to_ stop it _, unmake it, stand against that horde and cut as many of them down as he possibly could—_

“Watch,” _his guide said, and Alec could not look away._

_He watched, and saw that black tide crash against the walls of his city. He saw the Shadowhunters braced to defend their home drown beneath it, falling by the hundreds, shredded by the claws and teeth of the Infernal army. Their screams echoed over the waves as Alicante’s walls shattered under the impact, and the triumphant howls of the demons overwhelmed the wind._

“What is this?” _This time he shouted, trying to drown out the_ sounds _; the shrieking, the dying, the killing. Tears burned in his eyes until he couldn’t see at all, couldn’t watch his people being slaughtered even if he’d wanted to._ “What is this, why do I need to see this? Stop it!”

_The wind dashed his tears away. They were throwing the corpses in the river. He saw death-glazed eyes and red spreading through the water and couldn’t breathe past the pressure on his ribcage._

“This is the future, allarin.” _The creature turned its sun-shot eyes on him._ “This is what will happen if you aren’t there to prevent it.”

 _It was probably the only thing that could have ripped his gaze from the visions in the whirlpool; Alec whipped his head around, forgetting his awe in place of pure disbelief._ “That’s impossible.” _All of it, the tide of darkness and death—it could never happen, it_ would _never happen. And not because_ Alec _of all people was going to prevent it._ “You must have made a mistake. Jace is the one you want, not me. I can’t stop something like this!”

 _Jace was the exceptional one, the dazzling one. He could have stood here and shone golden in the storm; he could stand against an army like that and burn bright enough to drive it back. And he would not stand alone—Alec would be there, Alec would always be there, and Isabelle with them—but Jace was the one who could grab a world in his hand and keep it safe. Jace was the one who would walk straight into legend, and if Alec’s name made it into the story, it would only be as Jace’s_ parabatai _._

_And that was all Alec had ever wanted to be. He didn’t want to burn. He’d never wanted to be a legend. He only wanted to keep his brother and sister safe._

_He knew he couldn’t do whatever this creature wanted of him._

“If you don’t stand, the Nephilim will fall,” _the not-Simon said. If it was upset with him, Alec couldn’t tell; its expression was benignly calm._ “Down to the last child of Raziel.”

 _Unable to help himself, Alec felt his eyes dragged back to the vision of slaughter and hellfire in the whirlpool. Alicante burned beneath the waters, the_ adamas _towers cracking from the heat. Broken, they fell, a shower of deadly falling stars tumbling to the red earth._

_There were no words to describe such a sight. It was as if the sun had gone dark; something as permanent as gravity excised from the world._

“Valentine does not understand what he will unleash,” _Alec’s guide said softly._ “He thinks purging the ones you call Downworlders from your world will be simple. It will not be.”

_The blood spread across the map, and now it wasn’t Shadowhunters but Downworlders that Alec watched, werewolves and vampires and fey at war with Valentine’s madness. With a jolt like a knife between the ribs, Alec saw Magnus at the head of a charge, kyanite flames wreathing him like armour, his beautiful face twisted with desperation._

“Valentine cast his parabatai out when he became a Downworlder. He thinks all the world would have done the same.”

 _The Downworlders weren’t standing alone. The Nephilim were gone, but Alec glimpsed human hands clasping guns and realised that those fighters without claws or fangs or magic were_ mundanes _. They wielded weapons that Alec didn’t recognise, jet and chrome; some small enough to fit in a fruit bowl and others large as dragons and all of them burning, burning, burning._

“But humanity will fight,” _not-Simon said._ “They have vampire brothers and werewolf sisters, faerie godmothers and warlock uncles, and they will fight for their families.”

 _It looked at him with eyes like stars kissed with night._ “And your world will drown in blood.”

*

Once Lucian was gone, Catarina left, only taking a brief moment to check on Jocelyn’s vitals.

Halfway down the stairs, her phone rang again. This time, it was a familiar voice.

“Have you heard?” Ragnor asked bluntly.

“I just sent the local werewolf alpha to investigate,” she told him. “We’ll know for sure before morning.”

“How can we have missed this?” She could imagine her old friend pacing around whatever room he found himself in, the worry and fear twisting his emerald-toned face. Ragnor had always been a worrier, but this time there could be no brushing off his fears as overdramatics. _“Seraphfire,_ Catarina! Only a fully-fledged _anunnaku_ can call on that kind of power! This isn’t some toddler who’s slipped through our watch, it’s matured! And we missed it!”

“I don’t believe that,” Catarina said firmly. “It can’t be imaginal yet. _If_ it’s an _anunnaku_ at all—and we don’t know that it is yet—it can only be pupa stage at the very most. It would have been found before now otherwise.”

“Then how could it have summoned seraphfire?” he demanded.

“We don’t know that it _was_ seraphfire!” Catarina snapped. “Now, I told you, someone is investigating. This could very well turn out to have been some new mundane weapon.”

Ragnor was quiet. “Do you really believe that?” he asked after a long moment.

Catarina hung up without answering. She stared at her charts for almost four minutes before she was able to ignore the cold weight in the pit of her stomach and get back to her normal duties.

*

“But I can stop this?” _Alec asked desperately. How could he possibly stop something like this? Despite seeing it played out before his eyes, he couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t process the enormity of what he was seeing, what he was being told. The whole world dead and gone. Everything ever made by human hands burned and lost. Jace, Izzy, Max, Magnus, everyone he’d ever known—slaughtered. Every mundane he’d sworn to protect—drowned in the tide Valentine would unleash._

 _The creature stared into the water._ “Without you, the Fall is certain,” _it said._ “With you, there is a chance to turn it aside.”

_A chance. Only a chance. He almost asked how large a chance, before he realised that it didn’t matter. Any chance at all of averting all that red—he would take it._

“Without me?” _he echoed._ “Of course I’ll be there! Where else would I be?” _He pointed at the whirlpool._ “I swore before Raziel to defend this world from anything like that. I’ll do everything I can, anything I have to do. But I don’t know how I could make a difference. It’s Jace you need, not me.”

“No,” _it said._ “Jace is not  allarin. The song that must be sung, he cannot sing.”

“And I can?” _Alec demanded. As if there was anything he could do that Jace couldn’t do a thousand times better! Jace was the epitome of what it meant to be a Shadowhunter; if there was anyone who ought to be chosen for some mysterious world-saving mandate, then it should be Jace._ “Because I’m some kind of linchpin—”

 _He froze._ “How do I know that?” _he whispered. Allarin. Not a word from any language he knew, and yet—and yet it meant hinge, meant keystone, meant linchpin around which the whole world turns, and he knew it—_

_And he remembered the song Simon had spilled down his throat with that kiss—_

_The creature stared at him._ “What language do you think you are speaking?” _it asked, possibly amused, and now that he was listening Alec could hear it; the lyrical sound of words that could not be English, could not be any language he had ever learned, and yet that had been flowing from his tongue throughout this vision._

“You will need Enochian later,” _not-Simon said lightly, as though it were nothing, as though it did not break all the rules Alec knew to learn a language with a kiss._ “But yes; as allarin, you could hold back the Fall.”

“You keep saying could,” _Alec said,_ “and  might, and if I stand. Why wouldn’t I stand? What do I have to do to make this not happen?”

 _And the creature said,_ “You have to live.”

)0(

 “You mean I’m going to die,” _Alec said. His hand was still clasped in his guide’s._ “Don’t you? I’m going to die before this happens, before I’m needed.” _He nodded to himself._ “That explains it.” _What else could prevent him from standing between his family and that dark wave?_

_Only if he was not there would he not stand, and only death could keep him from being there. Only death._

“Yes.” _Said so calmly that any sorrow or shock was excised from the revelation._

_Alec nodded again. The thought of dying didn’t frighten him. No Shadowhunter expected to live past forty, not unless they retired from active duty, and Alec had made his peace with that before reaching puberty. It hadn’t yet been a year since he’d knelt and sworn his life to the war against the Infernal, to lay it down if doing so would save even a single soul from the demons—but even before that he’d promised his death to Jace in the parabatai oath. Where thou diest will I die, and no one who knew Jace imagined that he could live forever. Even with all Alec did to protect him, he might not make it to twenty-five._

_But that his death would damn his family, his world? That was terrifying. It hardly seemed possible that such a cheap thing could be worth so much, but he supposed that as a piece of dirt could break a clock if it got between the right gears, so could his life, placed appropriately, be of some use. _

_Maybe that was it. Maybe he needed to take a blow meant for Jace so that his parabatai could stop his father’s war. That made sense. _

“You wouldn’t be telling me this if there wasn’t a way to change it,” _he pointed out._ “You wouldn’t have brought me here otherwise. So what is it? How do I survive until the right time? What do I have to do?”

 _When it told him, he wanted to weep. But he was the only one who would have to bear the price, so he didn’t hesitate._ “Yes,” _he said._ “Yes, of course. I’ll do it. Take it.” _His heart quailed, but his voice didn’t waver._ “Take it all.”

_It didn’t ask him if he was sure. Alec was grateful for that. It gave him the strength to stand firm as the lightning’s glow slid over the face of his guide and changed it—or perhaps just revealed it truly for the first time. Thunder roared above the sky, and in the darkness that followed the lightning shadow streaked across the face that was nearly Simon’s. Blackness bisected the creature’s face, a thick dark stripe slashing down from brow to chin, painting its nose and lips with ink even as the black streaks in its hair bled white. From a mane of snow and salt a pair of curving ebony horns swept forward like a crown, rising above its head like sickle moons, and the mundane clothing melted away like smoke. Armour of obsidian and dragonscale sheathed its arms from palms to shoulders, and trousers of the same material hid its legs, but its chest was bare to the night and the storm. There was nothing to hide the golden runes glowing on its skin, or the way that the Marks drifted across its torso like stars in their orbits, blown by some celestial breath from their moorings._

_And now its eyes were black. Star-studded, but black._

_It tugged at the wrist it still held and Alec went, unflinching, afraid but undaunted. He stumbled onto the water but the waves didn’t swallow him, he walked on them as on glass with the creature’s hand holding him tight, and when it drew him against its chest he didn’t run._

_ (Demon, angel, something else, something not meant to walk the world and breathe—) _

“This will hurt,” _it said softly, and Alec could hear the pounding of his own heart over the warring winds as it drew him close. The runes on its chest gave off a heat like fire._ “More than anything ever will again. But it will not break you.”

_The hand that had held his wrist let go to splay over his heart instead, and Alec grasped the metal-and-scale plating on its shoulders to steady himself. He was blindingly aware that this could well be a mistake, that this entire scene could be a demon-spun lie, but he’d weighed the risks and he stood firm. If there was even the smallest chance that it was true, then he could do nothing else except tip his head back as the creature’s other hand slid into his hair, cradling his skull as if he were made of fragile crystal._

_If it was a trap, then he was still the only one who’d suffer for it. The risk—his life for the world’s—was a bargain._

_He closed his eyes as it lowered its mouth to his, unable to bear the weight of that jet stare._

_It was like being kissed by a sword. Its lips were cool steel, hard and metallic, and they parted his like a blade._

_When its song began to slip down his throat, he had an instant to realise it had lied when it said this wouldn’t break him._

_And then he started to scream._

*

“I hate dealing with mundane cops,” Izzy announced, watching Jace from the corner of her eye for a reaction. “It’s always, ‘where are your parents?’ and ‘how old are you?’” She huffed. “As if my age has any relevance to whether I can do my job!”

Usually Jace was the one disparaging and mocking the mundane police, but right now her brother was subdued, his gaze turned inward. It made Isabelle want to shake him, but at the same time she couldn’t blame him. After the night he’d had, she would have been testing him for possession if he’d been his usual self.

Oh, well. It wasn’t like she was the only one talking to herself on the Subway. She sighed.

Jace glanced at her. “Did you say something?”

Izzy rolled her eyes. “Never mind, Jace.”

They were almost at their stop. In a few minutes they would be at Magnus’ apartment, and maybe Jace would relax once he saw that Simon was all right. Which Simon would be; after seeing him heal Alec, Isabelle had every confidence in Magnus’ abilities. But trying to explain that to Jace after he’d watched Simon drop like that…

Suddenly Jace went still, and Izzy’s attention snapped to him. She reached automatically for her whip, because Shadowhunters only froze like that when moving was death, when to twitch was to be in the path of your partner’s crossbow bolt or be torn open by dark claws, but a quick glance around the Subway car told her nothing. She saw no threat, sensed no Downworlders or demons anywhere nearby.

“What is it?” she demanded.

As if he couldn’t see or hear her, he lifted his hand to his chest, a gesture she’d seen a thousand times when touching his _parabatai_ rune helped him focus on his bond with Alec. Seeing it now chilled her.

“Jace, what—”

He screamed. Not a cry, not a roar: he _screamed_ , raw and without pride, as she’d never heard him scream. It was terror and it was agony, more and worse than Alec ravaged by Abbadon’s venom, and the mundanes were looking at them with appalled expressions but she didn’t know what to do, was locked in place like something of stone because she’d never seen Jace afraid, not really, not like this—

As if fear could kill, if the pain didn’t—

He fell, suddenly, fell as if his legs had been cut from under him, and Isabelle reacted instantly, instinctively, darting forward to catch him before he could crack his skull against the floor of the Subway car. Mundanes were standing up, pulling out their phones, but Izzy didn’t have the attention to spare for them; she guided Jace to the ground and his spine arched like a bow, every muscle locking in place with his eyes wide open and staring at nothing, at invisible horrors.

The screaming cut off abruptly, but there was no time to be grateful, no time to wonder if maybe it was over; he stopped screaming because he was writhing, the tension in his muscles replaced with sick, terrifying convulsions. He bucked and jerked against the floor, his heels drumming against it, and his eyes rolled back as blood began showing through his shirt, as if a wound had broken open beneath his clothes—

But when Izzy cut sliced his shirt open, stele ready in her other hand and the tiniest flicker of guilty relief sparking in her heart because maybe it was just an injury, nothing to do with Alec at all—when she bared his chest, his _parabatai_ rune was bleeding.

*

_He fought it, every good intention seared to ashes by a pain that was beyond words, beyond conscious thought, too great and terrible to grasp or make sense of; it tore into him like the tide, implacable and unstoppable and snapping him instantly to an animal state, something raw and primal and mindless, and he fought it like an animal fought a trap. He writhed and twisted and his fists, knees, elbows sought blood, sought freedom and escape—and none of it made a bit of difference._

_His torturer held him like a doll, and all Alec could do was scream._

_There was no trying to bear it. There was no shame or pride or even a memory of why this was happening, why this was supposed to be worth it. The creature sang and the song was magma forced down Alec’s throat, lifeblood of the earth and liquid fire and he couldn’t swallow it, even if he’d wanted to or remembered why he should he couldn’t, every molecule of his being screaming denialrevulsion no, nononever, and it didn’t matter because he could choke and choke but he couldn’t keep it out; purest pain, like nothing he’d ever felt or ever would again, pain that ignored the nerve endings and neurons and went straight for the jugular, straight for his soul, ravaging something so deep and private he knew no word for it but knew it should not be touched, not ever, not by anyone, and this thing reached in with serrated claws and sliced—_

_Searing, screaming, the sense of something incomparably sacred being desecrated, twisted to perversion and Alec helpless to stop it, unable to bear it, shattering into a million pieces with the sickness lashing him apart—_

_He was nothing, not Alec not a Shadowhunter not human, not a soul and not a mind, nothing but agony, nothing but a screaming cloud of pain—_

_And something tore, something ripped free inside him and the pain turned to paint and he could see, so much, so many colourspicturesshapes flashing strobe-bright through his mind; brilliant, blinding, thunder roaring somewhere far-far above-away; it was like the whirlpool but now they were only glimpses, fragments, rushing through him like a whitewater river—_

Scar-tissue that gleams like mother-of-pearl on the palm of a familiar hand, six perfect points in the shape of a star—

Jace weeping, crying like his heart is broken with a bloodied Simiel clutched to his chest—

The river Sambation, flowing through Alicante like a ribbon of light driving back the gathering dark—

A young man sitting on a bed, his dark eyes blank and empty as he turns his face up for a kiss; and when he falls back with his lover atop him their hair mingles on the pillow, silver with silver, the colour of salt and starlight and bright, shining chains—

Alec’s mother on her knees, the barrel of a gun against her forehead and Simon’s finger on the trigger, his voice so cold as he says _“My name is not—”_

A club, lights flashing pink-green-blue, Simon’s hand empty now and outstretched, beckoning, inviting, his eyes dark and hooded and hot, the curve of his smirk like a choke-collar pulling tight and his voice smoke and sin and siren-song; _“Stay with me,”_ he murmurs, and it’s not a request, _“play with me—”_

Jace’s eyes wide with horror and disbelief and the blade is in Alec’s hand as the whole world is washed away in red—

Darkness thick with the smell of sulphur and ash and burning flesh, and a hissing voice almost laughing with terrible anticipation, _“The Sword of Samael has come again—”_

Isabelle standing beside Clary, both of them braced against a tide of dark shadows—

Max’s terrified face as the Mortal Sword comes plunging down towards him, aimed for his heart—

_NO! _

_One thought, one second—one directive more urgent than any agony could ever be and it sliced through the pain like a blade, grenade, a lightning strike come blazing down and it struck and he was fulgurite, crystallising-coalescing and exploding apart in the same coin-toss torrent, every atom of him turned into a newborn nebula with the sun in his mouth and galaxies spinning from his fingertips like puppet-strings, a hundred-thousand threads in a million different directions and he bound them all, he was the knot, the linchpin, **allarin** —_

_ You can’t have my family, that future will not be; you can’t have my family, THAT FUTURE WILL NOT BE— _

_And the thing that had been torn from him vanished beyond his reach, forever and always, and Alec was gone._

*

“Jace! _Jace!”_

He couldn’t hear her; or if he could, he couldn’t respond. He shook like something about to shatter, as if an earthquake was tearing its way through his bones, ripping him in half. Izzy dropped her knife and the blood on his chest smudged under her palm as she sketched frantic Marks on his skin—Marks which slid away like wet ink, dripping and smearing into nothing. They didn’t even leave the white scars that runes always left, no keloid kiss to prove that Izzy had even tried to help.

She scrabbled for her phone, dropping her stele in the process as she struggled to hold Jace’s head in her lap. There were mundanes gathered around, talking and exclaiming and she couldn’t hear a word of it, not with her bloody fingers slipping on the keys of her phone they were shaking so hard—what if it was Alec too, what if she was going to lose both of them and she could do _nothing_ —

And then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

Jace went limp, collapsing bonelessly into Izzy’s hold. His eyes fell shut as if weighted, and he was breathing hard—gasping for breath, as if lungs had been starved or smothered, and Isabelle lost her grip on her phone in her hurry to check Jace’s pulse.

It was quicker than it should be, but slowing, the jagged spikes and plunges smoothing out even as she waited. His breath was already coming more easily.

And his _parabatai_ rune had stopped bleeding. More importantly, it was still dark as ink, not faded as it would be had the bond been broken somehow.

If she’d had anything left to drop, she would have dropped it, so overwhelming was the surge of relief. It was almost enough to make her cry: Jace was alive, and so was Alec, and as long as those two things were true… Anything else in the world could be fixed so long as those two things were true.

The train was slowing. Quickly, Izzy gathered up her things, holstering her stele and blade and pushing her phone into a pocket.

“Give me some room!” she snapped at the gathered knot of people, and they jerked back, startled by her vehemence. She ignored their shock and disapproval as she ignored the well-meaning few who actually seemed concerned; they chittered like sparrows as she braced herself against the rocking of the carriage and picked Jace up, one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees.

He stirred a little, and she thought he said something, but his voice was too low and the noise of the train too loud for her to make it out.

Another ripple of surprise went through the mundanes as she got to her feet, easily balancing the extra weight. A glance around showed her wide eyes in all directions, but she couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong to catch their attention like that—she hadn’t used any Marks, hadn’t drawn a glamour and vanished Jace and herself into thin air—and this was their stop.

She leaned against a pole to keep from jolting Jace as the train screeched to a halt, and when she moved towards the door the mundanes scattered out of her way, as if the sparrows had just realised a hawk was near.

*

The atoms of him, scattered halfway across the universe, came rushing back together and Alec slammed back into himself with a cry that was nearly a scream. As if from aeons away he saw Simon fall back onto the bed, limply unconscious, eyelids falling shut over star-dusted black, but it meant nothing to him—nothing, because something was gone, missing, ripped away and he was bleeding, he was screaming with the loss—

The loss was all he was, it was everything; he was hollow, a gaping hole clothed in skin and the sheer _emptiness_ —

There was a black hole where a sun should be, inside him—

 _“Alec!”_ Jade-gold slashed through with black; hands on his shoulders; his name, called over and over until it pierced the mind-numbing terror, made him remember the world outside his loss. “Alec, what is it? What did he do? What’s wrong?”

He wasn’t bleeding. Not really, not _physically_ , but there was a cauterised wound at his core and it was seeping plasma, weeping, the edges shrieking-raw and he couldn’t get his breath for the sobs catching in his throat.

Worlds away, Magnus whispered something under his breath, and instantly half a dozen black ribbons sprang from beneath the bed and snapped around Simon’s wrists and ankles. The black satin gleamed blue under the witchlight, like the wings of a raven. “I was hoping to introduce you to those under better circumstances,” Magnus said, and he might have been speaking underwater for all the sense he made. “But anything that garners this reaction from you I want bound.” Fingers touched Alec’s face. “Alec, _what happened?”_

Alec shook his head. “I don’t know,” he gasped, and salt stung his eyes but it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough of a distraction from the pain inside. “I don’t know. I can’t—I don’t—remember—”

And then he was crying in full flood, mourning something he couldn’t name and had no memory of losing—but which he knew, as he knew his own name, had been priceless, and vital, and irreplaceable.

And he knew, even as Magnus’ arms wrapped around him and pulled him close, that there would be no getting it back.   


 

* * *

 

 

NOTES

 _Oel ngati kameie_ —this is actually not Enochian; it’s ‘I see you’ in Na’vi, the alien language from James Cameron’s _Avatar_. Because even Simon’s other-self is an _enormous geek!_

The river Lethe is one of the five rivers of the Greek Hades, the realm of the dead. In Classical Greek, the word ‘lethe’ literally means ‘concealment’ or ‘oblivion’—but it’s also tied to the word for ‘truth’.

 _Ashipu_ —the word for sorcerer or healer in ancient Sumer.

In canon, a warlock’s sign of demonic parentage is called a ‘warlock mark’. In Runed, it’s called a ‘devil mark’ (at least among the Nephilim) and has ties to the Salem witch hunts and the Christian beliefs of the early Nephilim. Basically it’s a slur, a nasty thing to call it.

A hulder is a Scandinavian tree spirit/faerie with a hollow back.

Larimar is a beautiful blue gemstone. Metaphysically it encourages peace and tranquillity, bridges the gap between emotions and the intellect, and ‘opens both the individual and the Earth for evolution’. It hones precision of purpose and is believed to bring about angelic contact.

 _Allarin_ —literally ‘binding’, but the meaning is a fair bit more complicated than that. It might be better to say ‘linchpin’ or ‘hinge’. (Enochian).

‘Imaginal’ is the final stage in insect metamorphosis, the four stages being; egg, larva, pupa, and imago or imaginal. Catarina and Ragnor are using the term to describe an _anunnaku_ fully come into its powers.

The Sambation is supposedly the river beyond which the Ten Tribes of Israel were exiled by the Assyrian king.

Fulgurite is a kind of crystal/mineral formed when lightning hits just the right kind of sand or soil. 


	5. Questions Without Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY CHRISTMAS, YOU GUYS! And happy holidays, to all those others (like myself) who don't celebrate or celebrate some other holiday :) Here is my Yuletide gift to you: a new chapter!
> 
> That said, this is NOT AT ALL Christmas-appropriate: this is a chapter full of angst and sadness, so feel free to wait until after the festivities before reading. Among other things, **TRIGGER WARNING** for non-graphic description/mention of non-con.
> 
> This chapter concludes this 'arc' of the novella; only a chapter or two more to go now!
> 
> As we say here in Finland; Hyvää Joulua!

“For God’s sake Izzy, put me down!”

“No.”

Jace glared at her. “I am perfectly fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You had a fit in a subway car. I’m not putting you down until Magnus has seen you.”

“I’m more likely to perish from humiliation than be struck down again.” But Jace’s eyes skittered away from hers. The shadow of what had happened on the train weighed too heavily on them for the thin veil of bickering to cover up and whisk away.

 _‘I don’t know what happened,’_ Jace had said when she asked. _‘But he’s alive. Whatever it was, he—he won’t die of it.’_

The flicker of uncertainty that poisoned his voice hurried Isabelle’s steps. She could have carried Jace much further—she wasn’t tired, not having fought at all on Coney Island—but Magnus’ apartment wasn’t so far from the subway. Jace was muttering something under his breath by the time they got to the door, with enough vehemence that she almost wished he had stayed unconscious.

“You’ll have to push the button,” she told him.

He did so without protest, and she knew they were both thinking about Alec. Her fear was a lead fist in her stomach, and she couldn’t imagine that Jace was any less afraid, whether or not he chose to show it.

They waited for a response, but it didn’t come and didn’t come and the fist in her gut tightened, twisting its hold on her insides. Jace pushed the bell again without prompting, and she didn’t think she was imagining the way his hand trembled as he did so.

This time the buzzer had barely stopped before it was answered. “Come up and be quiet,” Magnus’ voice snapped, and opened the door for them without waiting for a response.

Izzy and Jace exchanged a sharp glance, and wordlessly she set him down. Her whip coiled around her wrist like a serpent as they climbed the stairs, the smooth metal a familiar caress against her skin, but for once its proximity wasn’t enough to make her feel safe. _Jace would know if something was really wrong,_ she told herself, but Jace’s knuckles were white and the line of his shoulders gone hard and sharp, and maybe he knew but just didn’t know how to tell her, maybe his smart mouth failed him when it came to something like this—

Magnus opened the apartment door before Izzy could knock on it; it swung inwards just before her knuckles brushed it.

“Is Alec all right?” she blurted almost before it was open; and then she stopped and stared. Magnus’ jacket was rumpled and his hair was a mess, as if he’d been running his hands through it over and over, and the jewels on his rings had all gone dull and dark, the colours leeched out of them. But it was the strange, almost wild light in his inhuman eyes that made her lose her words.

“He’s asleep,” Magnus said finally, after staring at them both for too long. “They both are.” He stepped back to let them through.

“Where is he?” Isabelle asked, but Jace was already past her, walking unhesitatingly through the main room and into a small corridor and she didn’t wait for Magnus to answer, hurrying after her brother instead.

She caught up as Jace pushed open another door.

Alec was asleep, as Magnus had promised—and that wasn’t right, no Shadowhunter slept so deeply, he should have snapped awake when they entered the apartment, never mind the room where he was sleeping—but that wasn’t what called Izzy’s whip against her palm, wasn’t what had Jace’s hand dropping to his blade. Alec lay like an ornament in a snowglobe, curled into blankets of sapphire and cerulean—and completely encased in a sphere of bluebell fire. The flames shifted and flickered soundlessly but Isabelle could feel the heat of them from the other side of the room, a vicious incalescence that seared the air and made it shimmer, lapped against her cheeks.

In that moment, the reality of their situation hit her like a cannonball: they were alone. If Magnus had turned on them, there could be no calling Hodge, no parents to come swooping in to save the day. Right now she, Jace and Alec were the only Shadowhunter presence in New York. They were on their own.

A floorboard creaked behind them and Jace reacted before she could, whirling with a glittering knife in his left hand. “What did you do to him?” he demanded, and beneath the hoarse anger there was real fear, fear and exhaustion, Izzy could hear them like the rasp of sandpaper against wood. “If you’ve hurt him, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Magnus asked softly, and the air seemed to thicken, gaining weight and weft and the shadows in the hallway stretched like fingers, like fangs, like the bars of a cage suddenly falling into place around Isabelle and her brothers. “What do you think you can do to me, exactly, little Shadowhunter?”

“Stop it!” Isabelle snapped. She punched Jace’s shoulder, knocking him off-balance, and darted between them. “By the Angel, what do you two think you’re doing?” She glared at Magnus. “You’re old enough to know better. Alec’s his _parabatai_ , you should make allowances, not provoke him. And you!” she snapped at Jace. “You’re taking the Oath tomorrow. Act like it!”

They both subsided; the threat of the dark shadows retreated, dissolving into nothing. Magnus folded his arms across his chest, the eerie light fading from his eyes. “It’s only a shield,” he said, sounding tired. “He really is only sleeping.”

 _“Now_ , maybe,” Jace said harshly. “But what happened earlier?”

Magnus hesitated.

“Because I thought he was dead,” Jace continued, brittle and sharp as glass. “I felt something tearing him away from me and I heard him screaming, I thought the pain would kill me and—” His voice cracked. “—And I was glad, I welcomed it because he was gone, my _parabatai_ , my _adelfí_ _̱_ _psych_ _í_ _̱_ —”

He stopped. Isabelle saw his hands curl into fists at his sides.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he continued after a moment, “to be _parabatai_. He’s more than my friend, my brother. I can feel his every breath in my lungs, our hearts beat in sync. We are two people forged into one.”

He looked up then, finally, and Izzy was silently, pathetically grateful that he looked at Magnus and not her, because she didn’t think she could bear whatever waited in Jace’s eyes right now. “I am him,” Jace said, “and he is me. But it was like he didn’t exist anymore. What we are was unmade, and it was like living without a heartbeat, or breath. So tell me what happened, what did that to us, because I want it destroyed in case next time, he doesn’t come back to me.”

Magnus didn’t answer immediately. “You’re wrong,” he said finally. “I’ve known _agelae_ before. I know how much it hurts to lose a _parabatai_.”

He sighed. “I don’t know what it was he did,” he said. “But it was Simon who did it to you, Jace.”

*

_‘We had nothing to do with it! It was all Valentine!’_

Simon tossed and turned restlessly, his skin fever-damp. Snared in sleep, he couldn’t escape from the dream that was as much memory as nightmare.

That was a nightmare _because_ it was a memory.

_‘His orders.’ Simiel’s star-flash gleam, slashing across the back of his enemy’s legs. A grown man, screaming. ‘You should have disobeyed.’_

_Pleading. Begging. Laughing._

_The swing of a sword, and a human’s head falling to the floor._

_The lightning-strike_ rush _of triumph, sick and glorying in the taste of blood on his lips, in the crimson pool spreading on the carpet and the corpse he’d made with his own two hands. And that’s the real nightmare, more than anything else: the wild, animal_ pleasure _he feels_ _in his kill, the way he savours watching his prey’s eyes go from desperate to dead, the urge to throw his head back and howl bloody delight to the sky._

_This thing inside him like a cancer..._

_He’s dreamed this every night since Renwicks, replaying it a thousand times a night. Over and over: the fight that was more execution than duel, the elated laughter, the sharp-edged excitement pounding through his veins like a drug, like sex. The fierce hunger, after, to paint Jace in the blood and have him, keep him, tie his wrists with satin and fuck him till he screams for mercy._

_Some nights, that’s what happens. When he looks up from his kill, it’s Jace there instead of Clary, and what was it Isabelle said_ —‘You always did like girls killing things, Jace. I guess now it’s Simon who gets you all hot and bothered.’ _And she was right, because the gold in Jace’s eyes is always molten and he wouldn’t resist, Simon knows he wouldn’t—but he doesn’t give Jace the chance, or the choice; stretching out his hand, he reaches out and grabs hold of his brother-lover-_ mine _the way he did Valentine, sliding weaponised will into Jace’s runes, pushing puppet-wire through the Marks and into his veins for Simon to pull on and play with, and it’s so easy, so much easier than it was in reality. It’s effortless to bring Jace to his knees, to drag him down onto the bloodied carpet and pin his wrists above his head through a well-placed_ enkeli _and_ voyance _, and Simiel slices through cloth as easily as bone. Simon cuts his brother naked and there are no runes on Jace’s lips so Simon muffles the lust-turned-terror with his mouth, uses the Marks for surefooted steps and stealth on Jace’s ankles to shove his legs open and there, yes,_ mine _._

_Those are the nights Simon wakes up screaming._

_But this isn’t one of those nights. Tonight is something new._

_The blood doesn’t stop spreading. The headless corpse is a steady fountain, and the red puddle swiftly becomes a pool. It soaks into the carpet, but there’s only so much the old fabric can hold, and the blood doesn’t stop. It spreads instead, further and further, and it’s horrifying, it eats away at his dark confidence like acid. In minutes tiny waves are lapping against Simon’s shoes; he thinks of a ten year old Jace but Jace is not here. When he looks up from the floor Clary is not there either: she is gone, and with her the room, the macabre recreation of Jocelyn’s bedroom—it’s all gone, bed and chest of drawers and the music box on the bedside table, walls and window and ceiling. There’s only darkness, stretching on and on and_ on _and when he whirls for the door it’s gone with the rest, but the blood is still flowing. The pool is a lake now, and in Simiel’s light he can see that it’s still rising, faster and faster like the pool of tears in_ Alice in Wonderland _. In seconds it’s up to his knees, and then to his waist, and he pushes Simiel into its cuff so he won’t drop and lose it and tries not to panic. He learned how to swim when he was seven but this isn’t water, it’s blood_ , _plastering his clothes to his skin and the smell of it is overwhelming, copper-rust and iron and it doesn’t feel right, feels slightly too thick against him, obviously not water in some way he can’t pinpoint but can’t ignore—_

_There’s a flash of light—a gleam of glowing crystal—and then something crashes into him with all the speed and force of a falling star._

_It slams Simon back into the not-water-_ blood _, knocks him off his feet and the blood rushes into his nose and mouth, burning his throat and nostrils as it closes over his face. He chokes and writhes, trying to find the ground again, to push himself up out of the blood and upright, back into the air—_

_And realises that he can’t._

_Two nodes of pressure on his shoulders hold him under and the half-instant Simon realises it any illusion of rational thought goes up in smoke. Animal panic bursts like a grenade in his chest and he can’t see, can’t breathe, blood in his eyes and his lungs are burning-burning, he has to get up has to get_ out _, nonono. His hands fly for whatever’s holding his shoulders and he finds wrists, someone’s hands; his fingers slip on what feels like a leather cuff and his body moves without waiting for permission, kicking and struggling, lashing out desperately, clawing, his lungs are on fire he can’t breathe he can’t_ breathe—

_His hands scramble up the arms holding him down and when he finds a bare chest he punches without thinking, aiming instinctively for the solar plexus; connects hard and the grip on his shoulders weakens for just a second, but it’s all he needs, he twists and finds the ground and kicks again, kicks himself up and breaches the surface with a gasp of searing relief._

_It only lasts a second. Less than that. Because he’s not free, those hands are still on his shoulders, and when he sees who it is trying to drown him the horror-shock wipes all thought of escape from Simon’s mind._

_The face grinning down at him is his own—his own, but for eyes black as Marks and Tartarus-deep._

_“Expecting someone else?” Symeon asks, cruelly amused. His voice—it’s Simon’s voice, but he sounds like a sociopath. He sounds like Simon did when he threatened Hodge, when he turned Renwicks into a playful massacre. When he went dark. “Big brother, maybe?”_

_Simon wants to say_ Jace would never _, but he can’t stop staring. It’s him, it’s his own face, but become a demon from_ Supernatural _—those eyes,_ his _eyes, gleam wholly ebony, no iris or whites at all, and it’s one thing to see it on tv but here and now it makes his stomach roil and he wants to gag, has to fight not to. It’s_ wrong _, not human, jarring and sickening, but the differences don’t actually stop there: his twin is bare-chested and Simon can see that he’s covered in Marks from the neck down—_ strength _and_ stealth _and_ stamina _,_ power _and_ endurance _and_ agility _, a spider’s web of songs that make Simon just as dizzy as those black eyes. He has the same_ enkeli _rune on his forearm that Simon does, and his wrists are marked with the same scars Hodge left, but Simon barely notices because Symeon is wearing an_ armaskō _cuff._

_And it’s white._

_Simon freezes. He’s seen it before, somewhere, he’s sure of it—can’t remember where, but the heart-stopping terror it evokes is too intense and all-consuming, unreasonably so, it’s only a piece of jewellery but nothing—not the drowning or the twisted reflection of his face or those black eyes has made him want to run and run and run as much as the sight of that cuff. There’s a scream building in his chest, and it takes all his effort to keep it back behind his teeth._

_His other-self laughs. “So precious,” he mocks, and Simon can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t tear his eyes away from the cuff and the blade holstered in it. It isn’t Simiel. He’s shaking. “So_ pathetic. _I’m not going to have any trouble with you at all.”_

_Simon bites his tongue. The pain makes it a little—a very little—easier to think. “What—what are you—” He still can’t speak._

_His doppelganger smiles. Leans in close. “I’m going to take your life, Simon,” he croons, velvet-soft and terrible. “And live it better than you ever could.” He smirks. His hands shift, move from Simon’s shoulders to his neck. “Tell Jace I’ll see him soon.”_

_“What—no!” But the last word becomes a choking gurgle as Symeon shoves him under, and the blood closes over his head again, and it all goes black._

*

A hand against his cheek, snapping the darkness in half. Somewhere beyond words, he recognised the calluses on those fingertips.

Simon opened his eyes. A hundred motes of light glittered and danced around him, like a cloud of fireflies; above him, blurred and indistinct, hovered a familiar face.

“Jace?” His heart was pounding; he could still taste blood in his mouth. He swallowed. Tried to sit up—and that sudden _jolt_ , in his wrists-arms-shoulders, the instantaneous realisation that he was tied down, pinned, restrained, echoed like a gunshot through his ribcage. “Why—why am I tied up?”

“What do you remember?” Jace’s features were hazy, so that it was hard to make out his expression, but there was a strange note in his voice.

“Um—” Simon wracked his brain, trying to swallow down the rising tide of reactive panic, trying to ignore the cruel silk around his wrists. “The demon at the park. Abigor? And—fire. No, not fire, light, some kind of light came out of Simiel, like at the Dumort… Can I have my glasses, please?”

Jace moved out of his view. A moment later, he was back, carefully sliding Simon’s glasses onto his face. Some of the tension in Simon’s shoulders eased as the world came into focus; the fireflies resolved themselves into a curtain of hanging lights, dozens of tiny luminous stones threaded on silk cords. Chips of witchlight, he realised, remembering Jace’s glowing rock. Their golden light made the conflicted wariness in Jace’s eyes all too obvious.

“What’s wrong?” Simon asked. “And seriously, why the _hell_ am I trussed up like a bondage fantasy?” He did a double take. “Is that blood on your shirt?”

“It wasn’t like the Dumort,” Jace said quietly.

“What?”

Jace searched Simon’s face, but what he was looking for Simon couldn’t imagine. “The light that came from Simiel. It wasn’t like the Dumort, Simon.”

A draught set the witchlights waving like the fronds of some phosphorescent sea plant, and for the first time Simon realised how cold the room was, how loud the sounds of the street outside seemed. Was the window open?

“That’s why I’m tied up?” Simon asked. Sparks of anger were flickering now, threatening to catch and burn. “Because something weird happened with Simiel? Something which saved our asses, if I remember right. Should I let the demonfire barbeque us next time?”

“No,” Jace snapped, “you’re tied down because you _attacked Alec.”_

It was Simon’s turn to stare. “What?”

Jace looked away from him. “You broke the window without touching it,” he said. “You were screaming in your sleep, trying to hurt yourself. When Alec tried to stop you, you…”

He fell silent.

“I _what?”_ Simon demanded.

Jace’s jaw tightened. “You woke up and kissed him,” he said tonelessly. He continued before Simon could do more than gape. “Alec started screaming. It felt like he was dying, like he was dead. My _parabatai_ rune bled.”

He looked back at Simon. “Magnus doesn’t know what you did, and I don’t know either. But it was the worst thing I’ve ever felt. I thought I was going to die, I _hoped_ I was going to die, because then it would be over.”

 _And you did that to us,_ he didn’t say.

Simon felt a chill that had nothing to do with the broken window. “I don’t remember,” he whispered. “I don’t remember any of that.”

How could he not remember? How could his body act on its own, without his being aware of it? How could he break a window without touching it; why would he try and hurt himself while still asleep?

Could it be a kind of sleepwalking? Snippets of his nightmares flashed through his mind—the terrible runes on the walls of Sebastian’s room, the bloody wildness that had taken him over while Sebastian urged him on. And—

His other self, the monster who killed and laughed as the blood splashed across his face. The part of him that was Valentine’s, the thing his father had forged. It was the first time Simon had given it a name, but as the thought occurred to him it clicked into place, like a broken bone into alignment. _Symeon._ Valentine’s name for Valentine’s son.

Could it—he—have taken over, done—what? _What had he done?_

“I would never hurt Alec,” Simon said urgently. “I’d never hurt _you_. You know that. You have to know that.”

The strands of light swayed in the breeze from the window.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Jace whispered, so softly that Simon had to strain to hear him. “When you fainted… I thought you’d saved us at the price of yourself. That you’d fuelled that light with something too vital to spare.”

He looked at Simon, and the look in his eyes… It was pleading, and at the same time resigned. “You’re here, but it still feels like I’m losing you. I thought I’d be the one to guide you into this life, teach you what it means to be a Shadowhunter—but you’re going somewhere I can’t lead you, aren’t you? Forging a path I can’t follow.” He shook his head. “Abigor _bowed_ to you. Demons don’t kneel to anyone but their kings, but it bowed to you.”

Simon bit his tongue, choking on all the words that sprang to his lips but that would only make things worse; _I didn’t, I’m not, I’m sorry, I never wanted/don’t leave/don’t give up on me/is this how it ends between us?_ Overdramatic and awful, and he told the tide of cold water whirling in the pit of his stomach that Jace had every right to break up with him, if that was what this was. Every right. They had no idea what he’d done to Alec and Simon had no way to promise it would never happen again; what if next time Symeon killed someone, Alec or Izzy or even—what if he hurt Jace?

_Don’t be stupid, Jace is too good a Shadowhunter for me to hurt him—_

But he’d killed an adult Shadowhunter, hadn’t he? A less-experienced teenager ought to be even easier.

The thought made his throat close up, and he stared at the lights, trying to burn the thought and the images it conjured right out of his head. “I can’t have this talk tied to a bed,” he said carefully. “Will you please just untie me?”

Jace glanced at him, and for a second Simon thought he was going to refuse, was going to insist on leaving Simon like this. But after a beat he leaned over and wordlessly began untying the silken knots, undoing each one with silent care.

The gentleness of his fingers stung Simon’s eyes like fire.

The moment they came loose—wrists and ankles, forearms and thighs, lashed around his torso and waist—Simon sat upright, torn between relief at being free and dread at facing this conversation.

“What do you want from me, Jace?” he asked finally, when it became clear that Jace was not going to say anything. “Answers? I don’t have any. I wish I did. I don’t know why Abigor bowed, I don’t know what that light was, I don’t know what I did to Alec. I don’t know anything!” His ribcage was full of fire, his heart an atom bomb, and he’d spent weeks terrifyingly aware that it could go off at any second and he had no way to stop it— “Do you think I’m not scared too? Because I am, Jace, I’m scared out of my fucking mind, and it never goes away—I’m _always_ scared, I’ve been terrified since Renwicks that this thing in me will get loose and hurt somebody again.” His voice was shaking but he couldn’t stop; it was a torrent of poison rushing out of his mouth. “Will it be today? Will it be now? If I laugh too hard at a joke, if I’m kissing you, if I fall asleep, will I come to covered in some stranger’s blood? Or Clary’s, or y-yours—”

He choked. Curled his hands into fists on his knees. “Or Alec’s,” he said hoarsely, and his throat burned. “Now I’ve hurt Alec and I don’t even know _how_ , I don’t know what I _did_ and I don’t know how to stop it from happening again—I don’t know how to stop it, Jace, I just want it to stop, I just want it to _stop_ —”

A sob ripped free of his throat, all splinters and embers, razors and broken glass and Jace was suddenly there, holding him, his arms wrapping around Simon as if he could protect him from this too, as if he would die trying. Simon could hardly breathe through the embrace and didn’t care, clinging back just as fiercely, desperately, hiding his face in the curve of Jace’s throat and smearing salt on Jace’s skin. His shoulders were shaking, and he had to grit his teeth to lock the scream in, the scream that had been building ever since he’d tasted a murdered man’s blood on his lips—

_And liked it—_

He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking, disgusted, terrified. “I don’t want to be this,” he choked, trying to swallow the breathless sobs clawing to get out. “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t want to hurt people, I don’t want to be a monster, I just want it to stop—”

“You’re not a monster,” Jace said fiercely, into Simon’s hair. “You’re not. You’re my _aikane_. We’ll fix this, we’ll figure it out.”

 “You heard what Abigor said,” Simon whispered. _‘More like my kind than his.’_ “And I told you—at Renwicks—and you’ve _seen_ —Alec—” Hysteria, panicked and almost rabid, was bubbling up inside him. “What I am, what I can do—these aren’t _Sailor Moon_ powers of love and harmony, Jace, I’m killing people! Hurting people! Sneering at Greater Demons because this thing in me thinks they’re weak, pathetic, _uppity_ —what kind of creature thinks of a General of Hell as an _uppity little sparrow_ —?”

Jace didn’t answer. Probably he didn’t know what to say, probably Simon’s crazed babbling didn’t even make sense to him, and Simon bit his tongue, trying to swallow it. Feeling the frantic, desperate energy drain out of him, leaving nothing but cold, bitter despair in its wake.

He slumped against Jace’s chest, blinking back tears. “What did he do to me, Jace?” he whispered. Pleading, even though he knew Jace had no answers either. “What did he _do_ to me?”

He felt Jace’s hand stroke his hair; felt his _aikane_ ’s lips brush his forehead. But Jace said nothing, because there was nothing to say.

*

When the two Morgensterns eventually emerged from the bedroom, Magnus was over by the window, staring at the phone in his hand as if it had become a poisonous snake. He looked up as they entered the main living room, and the expression on his face…

“Alec?” Jace asked, suddenly pale.

“No, no… He’s still sleeping.” Dropping the phone on a table, Magnus ran his ringed fingers through his hair. “What happened at Coney Island?”

Startled by the non-sequitur, Jace and Simon glanced at each other. “What I told Alec,” Jace said after a beat. “A Greater Demon manifested at the park, before full sunset. It identified itself as Abigor and carried an Infernal blade.”

“It was there for me,” Simon said quietly. “It didn’t care about Jace at all.”

Magnus was watching him with an unreadable expression. “Did it say why?”

Simon opened his mouth to answer, but Jace put a hand on his shoulder, silencing him. “Would you trust it if it did?” Jace asked, his voice gone hard and cool. “Demons lie.”

“Everyone lies,” Magnus said. “Sometimes lies give away the truth.”

Jace’s expression didn’t flicker. The grip of his fingers on Simon’s shoulders ordered him to say nothing. “Maybe it was just looking to kill a Morgenstern. I always heard that Valentine had dealings with demons. Maybe this one wanted revenge for a bad bargain.”

Magnus nodded slowly. “Possible.” But Simon didn’t believe for one second that he bought it. “And the light?”

Jace didn’t answer.

“Just to clarify,” Magnus said, “that would be the pillar of fire that was visible _from space_. The mundanes saw it on their satellites. So please don’t try to tell me you missed it.”

“I must have blinked,” Jace said blithely.

Magnus stared at him. His feline eyes seemed to glow in the dim light; Simon remembered, inanely, that cats had a special membrane at the back of their eyes for reflecting light, and wondered if Magnus had one too. “Of course you did,” Magnus said finally. “What about you, Simon? Did you blink?”

Jace’s hand rested on Simon’s shoulder like a warning, but this was something Simon wasn’t afraid to share. That his blood had burned a demon like acid, that a General of Hell had knelt to him on bended knee and begged his forgiveness—that spoke of something terrible, that could only mean he was something more dangerous than a Greater Demon, something worse.

But the fire hadn’t been his.

“It came out of my seraph blade,” he said. From the corner of his eye he saw Jace glance at him, but he continued. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t summon it. I think I—it felt like I was anchoring it. Like it came from somewhere else and was just using me to manifest.” He shrugged, uncomfortable as Magnus’ gaze came to rest on him. “That’s what it felt like. It hurt, but it wasn’t coming from me. It was just…using me.”

A frown flicked across Magnus’ face, a brief glimpse of whatever was turning through his mind. “Hm,” he said at last. There was no way to tell whether he believed them or not. “And Alec?”

The pit of his stomach froze over. “I don’t know,” Simon answered quietly. “I don’t remember anything after the fight. I—” He swallowed. “I have no idea what I did,” he said hoarsely.

Magnus nodded slowly, and Simon thought that this, at least, he believed. “You may as well stay here tonight,” the warlock said. “Since I’m already infested with Shadowhunters.” He waved a bejewelled hand at the corridor. “Spare rooms are that way. Anyone responsible for waking me before ten will suffer the consequences.” Without another glance at either of them, he swept out, shutting the door of his room firmly behind him.

Jace and Simon glanced at each other.

“We could sleep,” Simon suggested, keeping his voice low. He didn’t think it was much later than eight o’clock yet, if that, but… “I can hardly keep my eyes open.” His _skeleton_ was aching with exhaustion, never mind the rest of him.

Jace considered for a moment, then nodded. “I just want to check on Alec first.” His knuckles brushed Simon’s cheek, and Simon’s eyes fell shut, his mouth gone dry and his heart tight at the tenderness. “Pick a room. I’ll find you in a minute.”

Simon nodded. “Let me know if he’s awake.” The least Alec deserved from him was an apology, but if Alec needed rest then Simon didn’t want to wake him. Especially since he was the reason Alec needed to sleep.

The two of them parted outside Alec’s temporary bedroom. When Simon opened the next door along, he saw a girl’s jacket on the bed; Izzy had already laid claim to this one, then. The next room was done up in various shades of purple, but all Simon cared about was that the bed looked big enough for two. A little investigation turned up a bathroom at the end of the hall, and a box of toothbrushes still in their plastic packaging. Well, Kaelie had said Magnus was known for his parties; presumably the toothbrushes were for those party guests who ended up sleeping over.

It was easier to think about toothbrushes and purple wallpaper than Abigor, and Alec, and Magnus’ questions. Easier than wondering if Jace was going to break up with him, which should have been the smallest of Simon’s concerns right now. Simon knew it, and it made him sick that he was worried about it at all.

 _I should be the one breaking up with_ him _. I should tell him to run for the fucking hills and take cover._

By the time he’d brushed his teeth, Jace was waiting in the violet room, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“How is he?” Simon asked, afraid of the answer but needing to know.

“Asleep. I think Magnus used a spell to keep him from dreaming.” He rubbed at his chest where the _parabatai_ rune rested beneath his bloodied shirt. Tiny runes, like stitches, held it together where it had been ripped.

“Probably a good thing,” Simon said, numb. He looked at the bed. “Are you sure you want to—with Alec and Izzy here…?”

Jace looked up at him. _“Yes,”_ he said intensely, almost fiercely, and Simon remembered the way Jace’s voice had cracked right through; _‘I thought I’d lost you. It still feels like I’m losing you.’_

Maybe Jace needed to be close as badly as Simon did.

Wordlessly, they shucked their jeans and climbed into the bed. Jace left his blood-stained shirt on the floor; Simon kept his on. They both kept a seraph blade within reach.

They didn’t curl up together, the way they would have at the remains of Jocelyn’s apartment. There was too much of a chance of someone barging into the room in the morning, and the last thing they needed right now was to add the incest thing to this terrible, terrifying mess.

But under the blankets, where no one else could see, their rings kissed for them, a soft silver chime as their fingers entwined like a promise unbroken.

And the room dimmed to darkness.

*

Isabelle looked up at the knock on the door, even though she knew who it must be.

Sure enough, Magnus poked his head around the door. He’d changed into a dressing gown of black silk that shimmered with embroidery, and his rings were gone. “If you want to freshen up, I’ll sit with him for a while,” he said gently, coming into the room properly. “Or you could get something to eat. I’m fairly sure there’s something edible in the kitchen.”

Izzy shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.” She gently stroked Alec’s hair. Magnus had lowered the shielding spell a while ago, and the petting seemed to soothe Alec a little. He was sleeping heavily, but his face was tense, tight, as if he were in pain, even though Magnus’ diagnostic spells had found nothing wrong with him.

But there was something. They all knew there was _something_ , or Alec wouldn’t be sleeping like this.

Magnus nodded, and sat down in one of the room’s chairs. He had brought a book with him, but he didn’t open it. “Do you think you should call your parents?”

Izzy glanced at him, frowning. “Why? It’s not like they can help. They’re in Idris for the Accords.”

Magnus seemed to become very still in his chair. “Wouldn’t they want to know their son is injured?”

“Not when there’s nothing they can do. What would be the point? It would be a waste of a fire message.”

Magnus blinked, once, and opened his book. “Most mundane parents would rush home if their child was hurt,” he commented.

Izzy snorted. “We’re Shadowhunters. If our parents fussed every time we got hurt, they’d never get any work done.” She spoke softly, so as not to disturb her brother.

The warlock said nothing. Although his book was now open on his lap, he wasn’t looking at it, but at Alec. Izzy wondered what he was thinking. Did he like her brother? He’d given Alec his phone number, hadn’t he? And healed him from Abbadon’s poison. That ought to mean something, right?

“Is he holding something?” Magnus asked suddenly.

“What?” Izzy glanced at Alec’s hands. Sure enough, his fingers were curled into fists, just as if he were holding tight to something. “I don’t know, I didn’t see.” She looked up at Magnus. “Do you think we should check?”

Magnus put his book aside. “I don’t see how it could be a clue,” he commented, crossing the room to kneel on the floor beside the bed, “since we know what—who did this to him. But you can never tell with magic.”

Gently, he took Alec’s hands in his. Izzy watched, but Alec didn’t wake as the warlock carefully pried open first his left hand, and then his right.

They’d been wrong—both his hands were empty. But when the fingers of Alec’s right hand opened, Izzy stifled a gasp and Magnus inhaled sharply. Because there, shining like mother-of-pearl embedded in his skin, was a mark like a brand—a cicatrix of gleaming pearlescence, a perfect six-pointed star covering his entire palm. It looked like a jewel, or a real star, if a real star could somehow become one with flesh and blood.

“What is that?” Izzy whispered. “He—that wasn’t there before. I swear it wasn’t.”

Magnus didn’t seem to hear her. _“_ _Si̱mádi angélou,”_ he breathed. His face seemed caught between surprise and awe—and terror.

It made Izzy’s heart pound.  “ ‘Angel mark’?” she translated, demanding. Her fingers found Alec’s hair. “What? Like our runes, that kind of Mark? What does that mean?”

“It means your brother has touched an angel.” Magnus looked up at her, his slitted eyes gone dark. “Start praying, little Shadowhunter. Wherever they’ve been the last thousand years, your celestial kindred are watching the world again.”

* * *

 

NOTES

 _Adelfí̱ psychí_ —literally ‘soul brother’ in Greek; translates as something like soulmate.

 _Agelae_ —plural of _agela_ , the group formed by interconnecting _parabatai_ and _parastathentes_ bonds. So you, your _parabatai_ , and your _parabatai_ ’s _parastathentes_ all form an _agela_.


	6. To Be Possessed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s International Fanworks Day; I couldn’t bear not to upload something! So here you go: I split this monster chapter in half (kinda/sorta) so you could have an update today. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT! Next chapter: revelations and angst and fluff!
> 
> (This fic will probably have one more chapter, plus a kind of epilogue thing. WE’RE GETTING THERE GUYS I SWEAR BY ALL THE GODS!)

There were no dreams, only a long, soft darkness that stretched on and on, serene in its emptiness. No hidden memories rose from the shadows to be reborn as nightmares; no dreaming stars shone to illuminate what he couldn’t remember. There was only a slumber deeper and quieter than he’d ever known before, silent and dark.

It was the softness that woke him, the dissonance of a high thread count. It was unfamiliar, and strange against his skin; silkier and finer than anything in his own life. Shifting in his sleep, it rubbed against him, drawing him further and further into awareness, wakefulness.

The final jolt was the sound of a door opening: his eyes snapped open, but before his lashes left his cheeks he knew who he would see waiting for him; the arrow to his bow, the sword to his shield. The part of him that wore another skin and another name, but was as much Alec as the blood in his veins.

And on the heels of that awareness came the other, crashing over him like a tidal wave.

Jace moved, faster than any other Shadowhunter alive but for once not fast enough; Alec snapped inwards, jerking his knees up and his body down, curling into himself convulsively and biting down on a scream of losslossloss—

_Emptymissingcoldgonewoundedravagedbrokenwrongunwhole—_

“Alec!” Izzy, her hair a dark river, her hands trying to reach his face, tip his head up so she could see him, “What’s wrong, where does it hurt?”

But Jace—Jace used no words at all, was suddenly just _there_ with him in the midst of the storm, being lashed by the hail of grief and heart-pain. Alec was so cold, but Jace was a flame, a bonfire, radiating strength like heat, telling him without words that—

 _*We have you, brother-_ parabatai _-shield, my heart’s echo, my mirror, my other self—you’re safe. You’re safe. Sister and brother-_ parabatai _-sword will watch, fight, keep the world from wounding you. Safe, safe in the den, safe with the_ agela _-family.*_

Alec shook his head frantically, gasping for breath, knees and chin tucked against his chest. He knew he was safe, knew it was over (whatever ‘it’ had been) but—his mind shuddered, jolted, clamping shut around the terrible awareness of _emptymissingcold_. He was already wounded and there was no ignoring it, no way to think of anything else, it was as if he’d woken with a broken neck and all his limbs forever out of reach—

 _*Show me,*_ Jace murmured mind-to-mind, gentle and firm as the light of a seraph blade _(setting shadows alight and sanctifying Nephilim skin). *Show me the pain/the hurt/the injury. Let us/me bear the wound with us/you.*_

_I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…_

_*You can, my completing part, my other name. Us/me is us/you. You-me-we is we/us. Let me in.*_

And because it was true, Alec let him in. He pulled down his walls like pulling teeth, shaking with horror, revulsion, inky despair, bile burning the back of his throat. It felt like baring his neck for a vampire, but he did it, his body relaxing enough to grab at Izzy’s hand and squeeze, breathing hard, as Jace found and touched and almost fell into the bottomless pit gaping in Alec’s soul-self.

“It’s okay, Alec,” Isabelle murmured, clutching his hand tight enough to bruise his bones. “It’s going to be okay.”

Jace touched the emptiness lightly, gently feeling along its ragged edges, its endless depth. Alec felt his own grief carve through his _parabatai_ , a shuriken of realisation-loss; felt Jace taste the dim spot in Alec’s mind where memory should be, aniseed-bitter, singed and charred. His own horror echoing in Jace’s pulse, reflected back a hundred-fold by the mirror of his brother’s heart.

“Alec,” Jace breathed, and it was anguished and enraged, catching fire like the seed of a sun behind Alec’s breastbone. “What did this to you?” _*You/us, you/we/us,*_ and Jace’s mind was a storm of knives turned in on himself, was waiting for Alec to name Simon and hating himself for it, hating himself for hoping for another answer, and Alec didn’t know what to do, what to say, what to think—

Isabelle cleared her throat. “Magnus thinks it was an angel,” she said softly. Apologetically.

_“What?”_

They’d both said it at once, Alec and Jace, and they didn’t glance at each other because they’d long since become used to it, to the thoughts-body-breath in sync.

_*Insanity madness angels don’t exist/what would angels want with me?*_

“Look at your hand,” Izzy told Alec.

For a dizzying half-breath, Alec glimpsed his hands through Jace’s eyes, saw them clenched tight against his chest. Then he blinked, and his vision was his own again, and he opened his hands.

His right palm was a handful of silver and opal, a breathtaking, impossible jewel. It still felt the same—it was still his hand, it didn’t itch or tingle or anything else an enchanted limb might do—but it was undeniably changed. The symbol wrought on his skin was a star with six points, more a Roman Catholic Marian’s Star than the Jewish Star of David, and as the three Shadowhunters stared at it it began to glow, faintly, a soft, burnished light emanating from it, like light glimpsed through misted glass.

The truly insane thing was that Alec recognised it.

Isabelle watched him anxiously. “Magnus called it—”

 _“Si̱mádi angélou,”_ Jace said. From Alec’s memories to Jace’s lips.

Izzy didn’t blink. They were all used to this, too.

Abruptly, Alec closed his hand into a fist again, hiding the mark. Light leaked from between his fingers. “This makes no sense.” They were the first words he’d spoken since waking, and his voice was a little hoarse.

“I’ll say.” The tone was light, but Alec could feel Jace’s brittle uncertainty hiding just beneath it. “Angels don’t exist.”

“Don’t be stupid, of course they do,” Izzy said, somehow managing to sound both scandalised and dismissive. “If there are no angels, there would be no Nephilim.” She pointed one elegantly manicured finger at Alec’s hand. “Besides, I think we have some pretty empirical evidence right here.”

“A mark that could have been made by anything,” Jace argued. “Just because some old books claim they’re caused by angels doesn’t mean—” He paused. “And anyway, it was Simon, wasn’t it? He’s the one who—and he’s not an angel.”

“Angels can take human form,” Alec said quietly. His siblings shut up instantly, and Alec felt guilt and self-recrimination from Jace. It wasn’t enough to distract him. “If they want to. There’s plenty of stories about it.” He flexed his fingers. “They can possess people too. Like demons.”

There was a moment of silence while Jace and Isabelle considered this.

“So…you think an angel possessed Simon?” Izzy asked doubtfully. “And that’s how you got the mark?”

“Or impersonated him. You have to admit, it makes more sense than Simon being an angel himself,” Jace said dryly. Strangely, his words were undercut by a near crushing surge of relief. Alec caught a whisper of _*an angel wouldn’t possess a monster*_ before the thought was gone, swallowed by a complex knot of contradictory emotion.

 _An angel. An angel?_ Alec tried to imagine what an angel could want with him; tried to imagine an angel really and truly _existing_. It was one thing to accept, as most Nephilim did, that an angel had created their race; that was something rarely examined, a piece of cultural trivia that had little to do with the daily life of most Shadowhunters. If asked, Alec would have said that yes, of course, angels must exist. Perhaps they even chose or watched over special souls, like Jonathan Shadowhunter, or Jace (how else could he continuously prove so terrifyingly lucky with his daredevil antics?) But no book had ever really explained what an angel was, except that they were not human; Alec couldn’t even visualise one, never mind understand what one could possibly want with _him_.

 _Did it touch the wrong Shadowhunter?_ Could an angel be confused by a _parabatai_ bond—had it meant to mark Jace instead?

He was distracted from the thought by the sensation of Jace carefully moving to fit himself into the empty, freezing hollow in Alec’s psyche. He wasn’t— _enough_ —to fill it, wasn’t the right shape or size, but he was warm and he tried and it made it a little easier for Alec to breathe. To think. To simply _be_ without curling back into the foetal position and screaming.

“I don’t remember any angels,” he said carefully, unnecessarily. But then, maybe he wouldn’t; maybe a human mind couldn’t cope with…with whatever an angel was.

“Maybe it didn’t want you to remember,” Izzy suggested.

“Then why leave a mark?” Jace asked. “If we accept that angels exist—and I’m not convinced yet—if I didn’t want someone to remember meeting me, I wouldn’t leave ‘JACE WAS HERE’ stamped across their forehead.” He paused to consider. “Unless I was very drunk. Could it have been a drunk angel?”

Izzy swatted him. “Now you’re just being blasphemous.”

Alec looked at the _si̱mádi angélou_ again. It was still there, still shining as if someone had embedded treasure in his flesh. He touched one of the iridescent points with a finger. It felt like scar tissue, but no scar had ever looked like this.

 _An angel._ He couldn’t grasp it. _An angel marked me. Why?_

The thought flashed between him and Jace: _was it an angel who did_ this _to me? Ripped me open/tore away something precious/left me hollow and bleeding?_

What if it wasn’t a sign of being chosen at all? What if it was a punishment?

 _*A punishment for_ what? _*_ Jace demanded. _*You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re the perfect Shadowhunter.*_ He paused. _*If it_ was _an angel who marked you, then… Maybe this is just Raziel’s acknowledgement of what we all know.*_

Alec pulled away from the idea. Jace could have followed him, could have forced Alec to think it/consider it, but he didn’t.

“Do you think we should tell the Clave?” Izzy wondered aloud. “It’s been hundreds of years since anyone saw an angel. Wouldn’t they want to know?”

“No!” Alec blurted. If the Clave knew, they would want to know why Alec had been marked—they would want to know what made him special; they would tear apart his life looking for something to explain it. If, in the process, they found out about…about Magnus… By the Angel, _no._

“I didn’t see anything,” he continued, in a more normal voice. “I can’t tell them anything that isn’t already in the books.”

“If you want to keep it secret, then we will,” Jace said firmly. “Won’t we?” he asked Izzy, pointedly.

She nodded. “Of course.” But she looked uncertain.

 _What did it take?_ Alec wondered. Jace tried to fill the wound, and that made it more bearable—but only just. It still felt like the core of his soul had been ripped out; he still had to concentrate on breathing evenly, on not weeping or screaming or snapping loose into some kind of frenzy. Every second was an effort, every moment hurt. _What did it take and why did it take it? Why did it mark me, why did it pretend to be Simon, why why why?_

There were so many questions, and no answers at all.

The mattress creaked quietly as Jace and Isabelle climbed onto the bed beside him; Jace had Izzy’s hand, but she grasped what was needed instantly and didn’t need to be led. She lay down behind Alec, looping her arm around his waist as Jace settled in front of him, hugging him tightly. Alec started, confused, surprised; they hadn’t slept all in the same bed since he and Jace were twelve and Izzy eleven, and he didn’t know what to do, how to react to this sudden onslaught of warmth and touch. He remembered that Jace was too beautiful to be real, remembered wanting him and loving him in a way he shouldn’t, but between their sister’s presence and the cold pit in his chest it was a dim thing, distant and washed grey. What mattered more was the solid certainty—in Izzy’s arms, in the currents of reassurance and love beaming through his bond with Jace—that he was not alone.

 _*You’re never alone,*_ Jace murmured.

“We’ve got you,” Izzy whispered, as if the three of them were a real _agela_ , as if she could hear. Some bonds didn’t need runes to cement them. “Just sleep, Alec. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

Sleep. A few minutes ago, Alec would have said sleep was impossible; now, with their warmth slowly eating away at the cold inside him, it sounded perfect. He wanted the escape of it.

Jace and Izzy hadn’t turned the lights on when they came in. There was only the blue pre-dawn light edging through the curtains. Nothing that would keep them awake.

“Thank you,” Alec whispered against Jace’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” Izzy said softly, and he felt Jace’s acknowledgement.

He closed his eyes, and let them breathe for him.

*

Isabelle moved from deep sleep to total wakefulness with no transition.

She held herself still, trying to place what had waken her. The light had changed, but not by much—she guessed it was about six or seven in the morning, and Jace had come to tell her Alec was awake just after four. The boys were still deeply asleep, but that wasn’t surprising; Alec was wounded, albeit in some way Izzy didn’t understand, and Jace was his _parabatai_. The two of them would be sharing energy, Alec taking and Jace giving until their levels were low, but balanced.

That was the _parabatai_ bond. You shared everything. It was the main reason the three of them weren’t a true _agela_ ; Izzy could have been their _parabatai_ too, could go through the ritual with one and be bound to both, but she treasured her privacy too much. Everything she did was seen and commented upon by someone; at least inside her own skin, her thoughts were own.

It was all right. They’d made it clear that if she changed her mind, they’d still be there. She couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

But the sound. Voices. At this hour?

She crept out of the bed. That they didn’t stir as she climbed over them spoke to how tired they were. On a normal day a mouse in the library was enough to wake either of them—from the other end of the Institute.

The voices were coming from the main room of the apartment, the big space where Magnus had hosted his party. As she got closer, she recognised one of the voices as Magnus’, but the other she didn’t know. Automatically she began profiling it, memorising her inferences to recall later; adult male in humanoid form _(not a werewolf in half-shift, not a demon)_ , late thirties to early forties, not a native to New York but with a practiced Brooklyn accent. A few more steps and she realised that the accent beneath that—the man’s _real_ accent—was northern Idrian. Magnus’ guest had been born and raised in Idris.

Reaching the end of the corridor—but keeping close to the wall, in the shadows—Isabelle peeked out, curious about and wary of any meeting taking place so early. She liked Magnus, and wanted to trust him, but she hadn’t forgotten that moment last night, when he’d threatened Jace. He was a warlock, and everyone knew that warlocks were the most dangerous Downworlders. Silver burned werewolves and vampires, and iron poisoned the fey, but warlocks had no such vulnerabilities.

And they had magic.

Magnus was standing at the front door, his body blocking his guest from entering the apartment. The Nephilim (what else could he be?) in the corridor looked unperturbed by this; he was speaking quickly and confidently in a low voice, his bearing and manner reminding Izzy of a thousand reports given to Hodge. But what would one of the Nephilim be doing reporting to a warlock?

A chill ran down her spine. Was he here about Alec? Could the Clave already know what had happened?

She scrutinised the man carefully. If she’d been a little closer, she could have sensed whether or not he was human, whether he was mundane or Downworlder or Nephilim, but she was too far away for that; she would have to go by his accent and clothing instead. He had dark brown hair, good posture, was wearing an appalling flannel shirt stretched over strong shoulders. Gold-rimmed glasses; it was too dark, and the man too far away, for Izzy to make out his eye colour. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him before. And if he was a Shadowhunter, she didn’t think he was here on official Clave business. If that were the case, he would have been wearing gear.

“All right, Graymark,” Magnus said, cutting him off. “I’ve heard enough. If you see Loss, tell her she has my thanks. Otherwise, you can consider your obligation fulfilled.”

“I’ll do that,” the Nephilim said wryly. He dipped his head and backed away; Magnus closed the door in his face without bothering with goodbyes.

Not good news, then.

Magnus stayed there, staring at the closed door as if it might reveal untold secrets if he only figured out the correct way to ask it. Izzy held still, hardly breathing, unwilling to be found spying on their host.

Finally the warlock sighed and head back towards his bedroom. Only when Izzy was sure he was gone did she quietly creep back to Alec’s room, thinking hard. It all came down to that one question: why was a probable Shadowhunter making reports to the High Warlock of Brooklyn?

*

Simon woke alone in a strange bed. It took him a few moments to remember where he was and how he’d gotten here; the moment he did a sickening wave of guilt threatened to sweep him under.

_Alec. God, I hurt Alec. Is he okay?_

A flicker of purely selfish concern sparked when he realised that Jace was supposed to be here, and wasn’t. For a second he wondered if Jace had changed his mind about being close to Simon and decided it was best to get as far away as possible—but Simon pushed the thought away. More likely Jace was already awake, with Alec or Isabelle, and had left Simon to sleep a little longer.

His watch said it was half eight in the morning.

Sure enough, he found everyone else in the living room-area thing. Jace and Alec were sitting at a table Simon didn’t remember seeing the night before, talking in low voices as Jace used a long knife to cut fruit into pieces. Izzy was dubiously examining the toaster; Magnus leaned against the counter and watched her through half-lidded eyes, cradling a mug of coffee between his hands. His wine-pink velvet dressing gown stood in stark contrast to the Shadowhunters all wearing yesterday’s clothes. Every now and then his fingers twitched, magically directing the spatulas dancing above the half-dozen pans on the stove.

“Woah, I’m in the Burrow,” Simon muttered—then flushed as he heard his own voice and everyone turned to look at him.

“He’s right!” Izzy declared after a momentary silence, too brightly. “It’s just like in the movie—remember, when the dishes were washing themselves?”

“I don’t usually bother with dishes,” Magnus said smoothly. “I just poof them away.” He flicked a hand; the morning light sparked on a silver thumb ring set with amber. “Are you coming or going, Simon?”

Simon’s mouth was watering from the delicious food smells, but he wanted nothing more than to turn around, go back to bed, and hide under the covers.

“Come sit down,” Jace said. He was the only one not looking at Simon; he was watching the blade in his hands neatly slice through a mango. “We need to talk, and we’re running late.”

 _‘We need to talk.’_ The words echoed in Simon’s head like a stone dropped down a well. Was any sentence in the English language more guaranteed to make you break out in cold sweat?

_‘I am his father too.’_

Maybe one.

“Guess I’ll sit down then,” Simon muttered. Painfully aware of Alec’s presence in the room, he took a plate off the counter—“It smells great,” he told Magnus, receiving a wordless nod in return—loaded up, and took a seat. The pancakes were thick and fluffy, but he’d never felt less like eating. His stomach was drawn tight, awkward and nervous about being around the others. He was clumsy with the syrup bottle, with his fork, too certain that they were all judging him, blaming him, hating him for last night. And being right to do so.

Whatever Simon had done, it had been bad enough that Jace had wanted to die. How much worse must it have been for Alec?

Apparently oblivious to these thoughts, Jace popped a grape in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “We think we know what happened last night,” he said without preamble. “Between you and Alec.”

Simon’s head snapped up. “You do?” He glanced between the three Shadowhunters, even daring a glimpse at Alec’s lowered eyes. “Do I—” _want to know?_ He swallowed, his heart in his throat. The food he’d turned to stone in his stomach. “What?”

It was Magnus who answered. “Given the evidence, your friends—and I happen to agree with them—think you were possessed.” He took a sip of his coffee.

“By an angel,” Izzy added helpfully.

“A—” Simon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re not serious.”

But no one was laughing.

Simon stared at them, disbelief spreading through him like a stain. “Holy Batman, you _are_ serious,” he breathed. “Are you all _insane?”_

“Possibly,” Jace allowed. “Personally, I’m not convinced about the angel part. It seems a little pat.” He raised his eyes to Simon’s. The impossible gold of them struck him like a blow. “But I think they’re right that you were possessed by _something.”_

Oh, it would be a relief to think so—it would lift every last bit of responsibility from his shoulders—but it made no sense at all. “I’d love for that to be true,” Simon said carefully, “but what the hell makes you think I was possessed by anything?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” Magnus said. “I spoke to some people, and they confirmed that the light you and Jace saw at the park last night was something called seraphfire. There’s simply no way a human could summon it, never mind wield it—and that includes Shadowhunters. You said yourself that it felt as if something else were using it through you.”

“Well, yeah, but…” _‘…no way a_ human _could…’_ But Simon might not be human at all, that was the whole problem; they had no way to know what Valentine had done to him, what Valentine had made him. Simon glanced at Jace, not sure whether he wanted him to agree or disagree. _You know, you know there’s something wrong with me, no monster possessed me because I_ am _the monster…_ But Jace looked back at him calmly, at ease.

“You were trying to hurt yourself, right before it happened,” Alec said quietly, and Simon hadn’t expected Alec to speak, couldn’t find it in him to shout Alec down. “That happens sometimes, if the person possessed is strong enough to fight back.” He was playing with the edge of the glove he was wearing. Simon had been so focussed on not looking at Alec that he hadn’t noticed that Jace’s _parabatai_ was wearing gloves at the breakfast table—black, fingerless gloves, made of the same supple leather as his gear.

“And let’s not forget that rune on your arm lighting up like a Christmas tree,” Magnus said archly. “Very Liberace.”

Simon clutched his wrist instinctively, but of course the _enkeli_ Mark wasn’t glowing now. “That happened before,” he admitted slowly. He was beginning to wonder if maybe they had a point after all.

“What? When?” Izzy asked him, eyes wide.

“With Hodge.” Simon licked his dry lips. “He, um—he locked me in this circle of runes, when…” He didn’t think they wanted to be reminded of their mentor’s betrayal; he skipped over that part hurriedly. “And I—when I broke out of it—this one,” he indicated his wrist, as if they might think he meant some other, “lit up.” He swallowed. “That’s not normal?”

Wordlessly, they all shook their heads. “Not even a little,” Magnus assured him.

“Oh.” Simon stared down at his wrist. The Mark in question was covered by his sleeve, but he knew exactly where it was. He hadn’t really thought that glowing runes were normal, but he’d never asked because if no one told him so, he could continue to pretend that maybe it was nothing.

“You said an angel gave it to you,” Jace said suddenly.

Simon’s head snapped up, realisation and remembrance melding together in his mind. “I forgot about that.”

“In the Angel’s name, _what_ are you two talking about?” Izzy demanded.

“You _forgot_ about meeting an angel?” Alec asked at the same time, stunned.

“No, it—it was just a _dream_ , it wasn’t _real_ —” They were all staring at him again. Damn it. He was starting to feel like the freak in a side-show, but that was hardly a new sensation. “After Abbadon, when I was—” He stole a quick glance at Jace’s suddenly pained expression, “—hurt, I had this dream. This angel—it grabbed my arm, and when I woke up the Mark was there. Like it had stamped me, or something.”

“So you never drew it,” Alec said. “And no one else drew it for you.”

“No.” Simon shook his head.

He’d never seen three people exchange a glance before, but the Shadowhunters managed it. It was kind of impressive, actually. _“Now_ do you think it was an angel?” Izzy asked Jace softly.

“More than I did before,” Jace answered, just as quietly. Simon could no longer read what he saw in the blond’s face.

Alec nodded as if steeling himself. “And then there’s this.”

He pulled off his right-hand glove and—

_and the music comes pouring in, pouringpouring as a waterfall of gleaming silver light, silver sound, the choir is everything and xe must join it!_

_Xe blinks open xyr eyes and there is only light, light and light and light—oh xe cannot breathe cannot_ be _in the face of it, this ancientnewness sacredwondersecret, feels the calling to dissolve and unbe and join it, them, everything,_ everything! _It is all stars, diamonds,_ light _, a hundredthousandmillionmillion_ countless _milky-way motes that form everything, build everything—_ we are all stardust— _the building blocks of the universe are all glowing gems/glittering cells/starstarsstars strung in patterns like beads on a weave and every thread is a_ song _and_ oh _xe wants to sing too, wants to join wants to_ be _, xe was built as an instrument for this song—_

_And every bead is vibrating, vibrating in tune, the vibrations are the world the reality everything xe can touch and untouch—_

_There are planets spinning like dancers to the music that is in xem and xe wants to watch them dance, gold and garnet and sapphire, a tumble of jewels flying through the starry spheres—_

Simon hurled himself backwards so quickly the chair tumbled to the floor with him in it and the impact jolted through his body, he couldn’t breathe, he was holding his head trying to hold it together stop it splitting open because the whole universe was inside his skull and it was going to _break him open—_

“Cover it up, put the cherub-damned glove back on!” Jace roared—

And it was gone. The unbelievable pressure, the sense of his skin dissolving into music to become one with distant galaxies, went out like a candle. Simon was left gasping on the floor, drenched in sweat, his thoughts skittering like panicked mice in fragmented pieces of _what the **FUCK** —_

Jace dropped down next to him, his face a white streak of fear. “Simon!” His hands flew to Simon’s face, frantic, and the trails his calluses made over Simon’s cheeks held him together, made him real again. Let him breathe. “Is it over? Are you okay?”

Simon nodded automatically, even though he wasn’t sure it was true. He was trembling, his thoughts wouldn’t condense into words and it felt like the only thing keeping him anchored was Jace’s touch, the only thing keeping him from bursting into a seed bank of stars the impossible stained-glass gold of Jace’s eyes looking down at him.

_He should be the not-human one, with eyes like that, not me…_

“Jace…” Izzy whispered, hesitant.

She was right there, watching, they all were, and in the same instant both Morgensterns realised that Jace was cradling Simon’s face like something precious, in front of witnesses.

Jace whipped his hands away as if burned, and Simon tried not to feel it as a rejection when all he wanted was to hide in Jace’s arms until he felt like something mortal again. “I’m fine,” he said loudly, forcing his tongue around the words. “What the—what _was_ that?”

“It’s called an angel’s mark,” Magnus said quietly. Izzy helped Simon to his feet, giving him a thoughtful look that he avoided. _“Si̱mádi angélou_. When an angel touches a human, the mark is left at the point of contact.”

“And it drives people mad?” Simon asked. He reached out and laid his hand on the table. The sense of something real and solid under his hands helped.

“Not that I’ve ever heard of,” Magnus admitted. “Was that what happened?”

Simon waited a moment, trying to formulate his thoughts into something coherent. “It was like…like looking at the Matrix.”

“The what?” Izzy asked.

“It’s a mundane movie,” Magnus told her, his eyes on Simon. “About, among other things, the code that makes up reality.”

Simon nodded. “That, it was like that. Kind of. Only it wasn’t binary code, it was music…” He couldn’t find the words. “Like the whole—everything—was made of music. Molecules vibrating, and the vibrations being sound. I think.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it. It was so— _big_ , so _much_ …” He trailed off. There was no way to squeeze the enormous majesty of what he’d seen—experienced—in those few seconds into human words.

“That didn’t happen to anyone else,” Alec said quietly, worried. He glanced at Magnus. “Is anyone else going to react like that?”

“I hope not,” Magnus murmured. He seemed lost in thought.

“Maybe the angel possessing him reacted to the mark?” Izzy suggested.

“Wait—you think it’s _still in me?”_ Simon could hardly wrap his mind around the idea that an angel—an _angel!_ —had momentarily possessed him; the thought that perhaps the angel hadn’t left yet took this whole thing from the absurd to the patently impossible. “No. No way. I’d _know._ ” He looked at Magnus. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Demons possessing people can go dormant for years, if they want to,” Jace said. Simon forced himself not to look his way.

“The mark showed up after—last night,” Alec said. His gloves were firmly in place again, and his face was pale. His blue eyes stood out like sapphires on white silk. “But a human can’t make a _si̱mádi angélou_. Your being possessed is the only explanation that makes any sense.”

“It could be why Abigor came after you,” Magnus added.

“Because it wasn’t after me at all, but whatever’s inside me?” Simon had to admit that he’d been wrong—the more they explained it, the more it took all the scattered pieces and made them fit. Presumably being possessed by an angel could make his blood weird enough that it would burn a demon—and maybe that was what Abigor had meant when it said something had claimed Simon; not any greater monster, but something celestial.

It could be true. Maybe?

“Don’t forget the psi vampire thing,” Izzy put in. “That was seriously freaky.”

“The what?” Simon asked, his heart sinking. There was _more_ that he’d done? More awful, monstrous things? Who had he hurt this time?

“After the fight last night—after you passed out—you were consuming energy,” Magnus explained. “Pulling it in out of your surroundings. It’s something that Greater Demons can do—it’s not technically possible for mortals.”

“But probably angels can do it too,” Alec said reassuringly, probably seeing the dawning horror on Simon’s face. “The treatises say that every demonic power has a celestial equivalent.”

It still seemed wrong to have Alec—Alec, whom he’d hurt so badly less than twenty-four hours ago—trying to reassure _him_. Simon still found himself pathetically grateful for it.

“But wouldn’t I have noticed being possessed?” He asked, directing his question at Alec. “You can’t seriously tell me that people don’t notice when some demon or whatever climbs inside them and starts playing sock puppet with their bodies.”

It was Isabelle who answered. “Well, _mostly_ demonic possession is traumatic—” _Obviously_ , her tone added, “—but some powerful demons can possess people through dreams, or trick their victims into letting them in. If that’s what happened, you could easily not know.”

“And who knows how it works for angels?” Alec added. “There hasn’t been a documented case of celestial possession for a thousand years.”

“There was Theresa Herondale—” Jace started.

“She was Theresa _Gray_ at the time, and she wasn’t possessed. That was completely different,” Alec said firmly. From the corner of his eye, Simon saw a strange expression pass over Magnus’ face, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.

It didn’t seem important. “So basically, you’re saying that I could have been sharing headspace with this thing for years, and never known about it.”

“Pretty much,” Isabelle said.

Could it be true? Simon didn’t know what to think. It would be wonderful if it were true—also terrifying, because it would mean there was a non-human creature for sure living in his head and swimming around in his blood, but he’d already known there was _something_ inside his skin with him. And angels were terrifying, maybe even as terrible as demons—but they were supposed to be good, weren’t they? If Magnus and the others were right, maybe he didn’t need to be so afraid of the monster—of Symeon.

If angels were good. If his understanding of what angels were was in any sense accurate. But it had to be better than a demon, didn’t it? It had to be better than the wrongness being Simon himself, didn’t it?

 _‘I made you great,’_ Valentine had said. Was this what he’d done? Caught an angel and caused it to possess his youngest son? Could you do that?

 “How do we get rid of it?” he asked.

Suddenly no one was looking at him. Magnus glanced down at his coffee cup; Alec toyed with his gloves; Izzy flipped a spoon between her fingers. Jace stared at the whorled surface of the table.

“Oh,” Simon whispered. “You don’t.”

Izzy shrugged. “Demonic possession—we could handle that,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “But an angel… You can’t exorcise an angel.”

“And even if we could,” Alec said, “it would be blasphemy.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” Simon demanded. “Just—wait for it to get bored and go away?”

They were silent, all of them.

“Right,” Simon said quietly. “Of course.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to do except to right his chair and sit down again, drawing his plate towards him. Shaken on too many levels to count, he focussed on keeping his voice level. “Pass the coffee, Izzy?”

*

“Farewell, Shadowhunters,” Magnus said grandly as they were leaving. “Remember what I said about loss.”

Simon’s head snapped up, shocked, wondering if the message was for him, but Magnus was looking at Alec. Who stared at the floor, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

“We will,” Jace said.

*

Simon spent the subway ride turning over what he knew about angels, brooding on the likelihood of this possession idea being true. It felt too easy, too perfect an answer—but then, it wasn’t that easy, was it? It was still a thing he couldn’t fix, couldn’t undo. It was still a terrible power outside of his control, a power that could kill and destroy. Lucifer had been an angel, after all; and it had been an angel that atom-bombed Sodom and Gomorrah. He hoped that popular culture had got something right, hoped that angels were at least, in some sense, _good_. But there were a lot of kinds of good, and a lot of bigger-picture good looked like evil when you were on the ground with the little guys.

He was tying his brain in knots now.

One thing he clung to: if it was true, then none of it was his fault. If he was possessed, then it wasn’t him who had hurt Alec, or allowed him to be hurt. Alec had said that Simon had fought it, before the—before the kiss, and whatever it had done. He’d tried. It wasn’t his fault.

The Institute was as imposing as ever, but after everything it no longer felt like Hogwarts. And although the morning’s revelations should have been enough to keep him occupied for weeks—although he knew he had bigger concerns—none of that changed the leaden wish in the pit of his stomach that today could just…not happen.

Alec stepped up ahead of them to open the doors. As he ascended the stairs, the hunched-in posture melted away; with every step he stood straighter, prouder, the mantle of authority settling over his shoulders. A week ago Jace had mentioned that Alec was Head of the Institute now; hells, with Hodge fled and the Lightwood parents away Alec was the only adult Shadowhunter left in the city. Until today. It seemed to suit him.

When he laid his hand on the doors—the marked hand, the _si̱mádi angélou_ hand—Simon felt it as a pulse below his breastbone, a tiny shockwave in his heart. He heard a whisper of its song, soft as a breath in his ears…and then the doors swung inwards on silent hinges, opening to their new master, and it was gone.

The entrance hall had been decorated to celebrate the occasion. Banners featuring the Morgenstern sign, a circle of silver stars on a black ground, had been hung on the walls; they were silk, but looked hastily made, as if others had been prepared and the substitution had occurred at the last minute—as, of course, it had. Matching streamers had been draped everywhere, long ribbons of silver silk, and here and there Simon saw what looked like seraph blades hanging like mistletoe above the doors, tied in place with yet more ribbons. He frowned at them, trying to work out what about them bothered him, then realised they were fakes, toys of sparkling glass instead of runed _adamas_.

“I’ll see you in the _naos_ ,” Alec said shortly. The air of proud command had vanished as swiftly as it had appeared; he headed up the stairs without another word, without glancing at Simon.

 _It wasn’t my fault,_ Simon told himself, clinging to that. But he wondered if Alec believed it, wondered if that made it the tiniest bit better.

Izzy and Jace shared a look—and then Izzy threw her arms around Jace, hugging him tightly. Jace froze.

“Oh, get over yourself, you emotionally constipated _male,_ ” Izzy huffed, pulling back. She was smiling. “And congrats. I’ll see you after the ceremony.”

Jace smiled back, a little tightly—and then she was gone, and he and Simon were alone for the first time in what felt like days.

As if he’d realised it at the same time, Jace cleared his throat. “Would you like help with your gear?”

“I think I need to shower first,” Simon said. “But yeah, I’d appreciate it.” Look at him, conversing like a mature adult when he was a human-shaped bag of snakes. There should be medals for this. “Jace—”

Jace held up a hand. “Let’s talk upstairs.”

Was that promising or worrying?

Not every corridor had been decorated for the occasion—the Institute was just too big for three teenagers to prettify all on their own—but the area around Jace’s room bore the same streamers and glass seraph blades as the entrance hall. Here the ribbons were embroidered with runes, the kind that worked no magic when placed on skin; _formue_ , which like _xorti_ meant good luck but had no more power to create it than a love rune could make someone love you, _áthas_ for joy, _juhla_ for celebration. Simon had been studying the Codex, where runes like these could be written on normal paper; unlike the magical, angelic Marks, they made no songs in his head to tell him their names and meanings. They had no power to make this a happy day.

Despite the revelation that he was the son of a war-criminal, his room at the Institute hadn’t been revoked—and despite the incest-shocker, it was still next to Jace’s. Suggesting that Simon pick a new room would have meant confronting the fact that one of the Nephilim’s rising stars (that was Jace, obviously, not Simon) had been in love with his brother—and Shadowhunters weren’t big on acknowledging awkward truths.

Oh well. It meant he got to keep his room.

At his door, he avoided Jace’s gaze. “I’ll go clean up,” he said quickly, and hurried inside without giving Jace a chance to speak.

In the weeks since Renwicks, Simon hadn’t added much to this room. There was no need; he was barely ever in it. He didn’t want to be a Shadowhunter, didn’t want any part of this world except Jace; walking into the cold, silent, imposing Institute was a reminder of every reason he hated the Nephilim culture _(who left three teenagers responsible for an entire city, who cast a person out of their freaking_ race _for loving someone of their own sex?)_ But he kept a few changes of clothes here, both because he was learning how to be what he was in the training room downstairs and hand-to-hand got sweaty most days, and because you never knew what might happen. A prepaid cell phone plus charger were hidden at the back of a drawer for the same reason.

The clothes waiting for him today weren’t a pair of comfortable jeans and t-shirt (with _I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person_ emblazoned across the chest) but formal Shadowhunter wear, waiting on a hanger in the closet. Simon didn’t glance in at them, just headed straight for the shower.

The water was hot, the water pressure something the Winchester brothers would kill for. Simon tipped his head back under it, trying to relax and let it work on his tense muscles. Magnus’ beds were divine—no surprise there—but the weight of his guilt and dread had left knots in his shoulders and neck.

He was just reaching for the shampoo when he heard the bathroom door open. The bottle slipped through his fingers and he swore, the shock nearly stopping his heart. “I thought you needed permission to come in here?”

He knew it was Jace, even if the shower’s glass walls were already fogged from the hot water. Of course it was him; Alec or Izzy certainly weren’t interested in seeing Simon naked. But his breath still caught when the shower door opened, because expectation never lived up to reality, and no matter how many times he saw Jace naked the sight of him always blew Simon away. Jace was built like a jaguar, svelte and golden and lithely muscled, and the Marks on his body could have been a big cat’s rosettes as he climbed into the shower with Simon. His lips were forged into that smile that made Simon’s pulse pound like a bass kit. “I was hoping you’d give it to me,” he murmured, barely audible over the falling water, and the shower’s heat wasn’t enough to keep Simon from shivering at his tone, or the promise in it. “Or will you turn me away?”

“Never,” Simon whispered, and relief warred with desire in Jace’s eyes.

He reached for Simon and Simon drew him close, pulling them together, and the moment they touched he could feel Jace’s need singing out of him like a plucked harp-string, one long, desperate, sherbet-sweet note that knifed through Simon like a blade of fire. Before he could even gasp for breath Jace’s lips found his like a compass finding North, his hand raised to cradle Simon’s skull, tongue lapping into his mouth and the hot water turned the slip and slide of their bodies into oiled silk and lightning, so good, too good, _give me more_.  

His back hit the shower wall and his fingers were in Jace’s wet hair and if it was a choice between breathing or more of those kisses he knew which he was going to pick every damn time. Jace’s hips slotted against his, smooth and perfect and the growing swell of his arousal pressing into Simon’s stomach made him moan, arching into the burning pressure. The glass against his spine was cool but warming, the water kissing his skin and the frictionless shifting of Jace against him—

Jace’s hands stroked down his body, neck and shoulders and the hardening planes of his chest _(two weeks of Shadowhunter training will tone up anyone, he doesn’t look like Jace yet but he’s changing, carved anew by the seraph blades he’s learning to wield)_ , wakening new nerve endings under his skin, sparking and shining—

Until his palms caught on the thin, raised ribbons of Simon’s newest scars, and stopped.

Simon shivered, dragging his nails lightly down the back of Jace’s neck, trying to urge him on. But Jace only traced the dimmed runes with his fingertips, softly; _tharros. Silminvar. Xorti_. Under his touch they seemed to sing again, faint, faraway echoes of their choruses sounding in the back of Simon’s mind, fading whispers. The scars themselves were sensitive, as if they weren’t skin at all but direct lines to his nervous system; Jace stroked his calluses over the pale whorls and the gentle friction felt so terribly, awfully good, a sensation that couldn’t decide whether to be pleasure or pain…

The kiss dissolved, their lips melting apart. Simon was trembling, a thick, hot ache coiling and uncoiling in the pit of his stomach, burningly aware of every place his body touched Jace’s—and of Jace pulling away, just a little, one hand going back to Simon’s jaw as the other skimmed back and forth over the faded ghost of a _sigilo_ Mark. His eyes had darkened, bronzed as they stared down at the rune.

He didn’t need to say it.

Simon reached up to his cheek and placed his hand over Jace’s, holding it there. Jace’s eyes fell closed, his expression almost pained, and Simon leaned into him, pressed his forehead against his lover’s until he could feel Jace’s breath against his wet lips and neither of them said a word. They didn’t have to.

The water fell like warm tears on their faces.

Until without warning Jace leaned in and kissed him again—hard, hard enough to bruise, as though he meant to brand himself on Simon’s lips for the whole world to see, and his desperation was sugar and capsaicin flooding Simon’s mouth, sweet and burning. It scorched Simon’s throat as he kissed back just as hard, his heart a shining green dragonfly in his chest with wings ablur, beating an emerald rainbow as he clutched at his lover, his hands caressing and cataloguing every inch of skin they could reach; smooth skin and scarred skin and Marked skin, all of it warm and alive and _Jace_ and he needed Jace so badly, so much. One wrong move last night, one stumble or mis-timed strike and he could have lost his _aikane_ to Abigor’s blade—

It was a cold thought, an ice thought, but the water was warm and Jace’s hands were hotter still, setting him ablaze, setting him alight until he could hardly breathe. Simon broke away from Jace’s mouth to kiss his jaw, his neck, the machine-gun fire of his pulse hammering beneath Simon’s lips. He scraped his teeth over Jace’s throat and for a moment he tasted blood on his tongue, heard Sebastian’s voice in his ear, _‘you’ll tear him apart and laugh while he bleeds’_ , but he shoved it away; _it was just a nightmare, I’m not a monster, it’s an angel inside me and what angel would ever hurt Jace?_ He bit at Jace’s pulse and heard his low groan of approval, felt him tip his head back to give Simon room, heedless of the shower spray that must be falling on his face. His hands found Simon’s waist, clutched his thighs, thumb brushing teasingly over Simon’s cock so that Simon’s hips bucked, thrusting pleadingly into the touch, now-now-now—

Jace was gasping and the curve of his neck into his shoulder was so impossibly smooth, the sweep of his collarbone like wings and Simon couldn’t stand it, felt Jace’s perfection like a physical pain, his beauty like fire and the molten gold heart of him nova-bright, and when Jace’s blade-roughened palm wrapped around them both together Simon’s knees went weak, stunned by bliss like a bullet to the brain. His mouth found Jace’s again, seeking blindly, dazzled by the water in his eyes and the slickness—shower gel? soap?—in Jace’s hand, and they were so close, so close and still alive and thrusting together, slipping and scrambling and huffing little gusts of breathless laughter that edged too close to hysteria, too close to tears, turning the kisses rough and clumsy with _I’m here I’m here I’m here_ pounding like a shared heart between them—

The kiss came apart again, sugar in water, and Jace’s lips found the scratches on Simon’s face, the ones he’d given himself fighting off the possession, kissing them all, kissing the bruises on his throat and the pressure of his mouth on them stung but Simon didn’t care, didn’t care and didn’t care with Jace’s hipbones pressed up against his, Jace’s cock thrusting desperately against his own. He dug his nails into Jace’s back, clutching at him, pulling Jace harder against him and Jace gasped and his hips shuddered and he was nuzzling Simon’s ear, his voice broken to pieces, “I want—Simon, I want you inside me,” and it took everything Simon had not to come then and there with those words echoing cymbal-like in his head.

 _“Fuck,”_ he swore, clinging to his self-control with his fingernails for one very long second. “Fuck, Jace—” _Yes, exactly,_ a traitorous voice whispered, and Simon bit viciously at his lip. “I—right now? Are you sure?” _‘We’re running late.’_ “Do we have time?”

Jace laughed, a shaky exhale of breath caressing the side of Simon’s face. “Probably not,” he admitted, not sounding as though he cared—and that sent another bolt of heat to Simon’s belly, the thought of Jace wanting— _that_ , Simon inside him, more than he wanted his dedication ceremony.

But it would mean rushing, and for Jace’s first time—

Kal-el on Krypton, _Jace’s first time_ —

With effort, Simon dragged his mind out of the gutter. Mostly. “I don’t want to rush,” he said, and was surprised to hear his own voice gone low and rich. He slid a hand into Jace’s hair, brushed his lips over his lover’s ear. “When we—do that, I want it to be perfect.”

He felt Jace shiver against him and didn’t want it to stop, wanted to feel that again, wanted and wanted and wanted and heard himself saying, “But I think I know what we can do instead,” and Jace’s fingers tightened on him and Simon’s hands found the blond’s shoulders and pushed him back across the shower, followed and caught him between Simon’s body and the shower’s warm glass wall and the huff of Jace’s breath was part laughter and part lust-need- _now_ before Simon stole it from him, before they locked like magnets and his tongue was in Jace’s mouth again, licking into him as his hands slid down.

And he—he didn’t _think_ , because if he’d thought he would have known he couldn’t do this, wasn’t strong enough to slide his hands under Jace’s thighs and _lift_ , but he didn’t and he did and Jace made a shocked sound against Simon’s tongue, his long, gorgeous legs wrapping around Simon’s waist without prompting, his ankles hooking around the tops of Simon’s thighs and pulling him in demandingly. They both groaned at the contact; Jace bucked his hips, grinding into Simon’s cock and the shower was a tropical rain against Simon’s back, the sharp bite of Jace’s nails in his shoulders only making it sweeter, hotter—

He wasn’t strong enough to bear Jace’s weight—just like he hadn’t been strong enough to smash open the door at Renwicks—or hold his blade up under Abigor’s onslaught—

Except that he _had_ been strong enough—he was now _—_

And the thought flew from his mind because nothing, nothing in the world could be more important than this-here-now, Jace panting and his pupils blown wide and his lips swollen with kisses, his mouth darkened to the color of crushed red velvet and Simon nuzzled him, trying to catch his breath, reaching down to grab some of the slick stuff Jace had stroked their cocks with. He teased the head of Jace’s arousal in the process, wringing a hissed curse from Jace’s throat and Simon just had to kiss him again, and again, breathless with stunned amazement that he was allowed to see this, allowed to touch this, that Jace wanted _him_ out of everyone in the world—

To think that he could have lost him—

“Like this,” Simon murmured thickly, and slid his fingers against the cleft of Jace’s ass, lightly skimming over his hole. His mouth was dry even before he registered Jace’s full-body shudder, the twitch of his hips and the short slash of his nails in Simon’s shoulder blades; he kissed Jace quickly, panting, brushing his lips over his lover’s again and again. “You can still have me inside you, Jace, if you want. I can—” _fuck you_ ; suddenly the term seemed too crude, too rough, not enough to be worthy of the precious gift of Jace’s trust; “—use just my fingers.” Another kiss, because he couldn’t help it, because just saying the words out loud made him want to come hard and messy and _now_ all over Jace’s stomach. “Only if you want me to.”

“Now,” Jace said, and it was an order, it was molten iron in the pit of Simon’s stomach, and his body was burning to just _move_ but he went slow, so slow, gently pushing the tip of just one finger against the ring of muscle, and Jace’s low sounds of frustration nearly made Simon cross-eyed but oh god he wanted this to be good, needed it to be good for Jace, and then he had the first joint of his finger inside and Jace hissed, tossing his head back against the wall like a spooked horse and Simon held so still because if he didn’t he was going to blow like the death star, just from this, just from the tight, silky heat clamped around his finger. He kissed Jace’s neck in a gesture meant to soothe.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Jace shook his head _no_. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said roughly, and the slight tone of suspicion in his voice made Simon laugh.

“No, it doesn’t—not with just a finger, it’s too small.”

Jace’s hips twitched, and Simon saw him swallow. “It’s strange.”

Simon felt himself smirk, and nuzzled Jace’s jaw. “Right? But,” and he brushed his lips over the corner of Jace’s mouth, “if you give me a second, I’ll show you why I love it so much.”

He was holding Jace’s weight pressed against the glass, with one hand under Jace’s thigh, and as he carefully worked Jace open he kept rocking, rolling his hips in small, sweet circles, both to distract Jace from the weird sensation and because he couldn’t _not_ , couldn’t hold completely still without somehow channeling all this _need_. Jace’s nails were dug hard into his back and he was making low, sweet sounds in his throat that he couldn’t seem to help, and Simon had two fingers in him now, sliding in and out easy as anything, the shower washing away the mess Jace’s cock was leaving on his belly as fast as it could come and it was unbelievable, the way Jace was starting to push back into it, just gently, wanting more—

Simon licked his lips and crooked his fingers just right.

It took a lot to make Jace loud, but that did it; not a scream but a choked cry that Simon muffled with his mouth, expecting it and distantly dreading what might happen if anyone else had heard it; Jace’s nails raked down his back like claws and his whole body jerked, gasping against Simon’s lips as if he were wounded, as if he’d been hurt, but there was only stunned bliss in his face, disbelief and pleasure and Simon had to do it again, and again, stroking that key bundle of nerves to make his _aikane_ buck against him as if struck by lightning—

“This is why,” Simon found himself murmuring, stealing kisses and little nips at Jace’s mouth as his fingers thrust in and in and _in_ , working Jace’s prostate without pause and drinking him in, everything, every moan and whimper and twist of that body writhing against him, “this is why I like it, Jace, this is what I feel when you’re fucking into me—this is what it’ll feel like to have me inside you, my cock stroking over this spot right here every time I thrust in—only it’s better, it’ll be better because we’ll be even closer, you’ll have all of me, lay claim to all of me—”

And there was pleasure but there was desperation too, still, need not just for release but for that closeness, that claim, and Jace’s nails were biting so deeply into Simon’s skin, carving Marks for _stay_ and _unhurt_ and _l-l-love_ into his back but Simon didn’t say a word, would cut his own wrists and bleed to prove to Jace that he was still alive if that was what he needed. Jace was so warm around his fingers, so warm against him, solidly here and real and sobbing for breath as he twisted against Simon, and when he tossed his head back against the wall Simon kissed him, again and again, showering his cheeks and brow in flour-soft kisses, murmuring adoration like a spell, like a prayer, praise and homage for Jace alone—

 _“So beautiful, amazing, perfect—_ God, _Jace—”_

Until Jace’s breath broke like a mirror, not with pleasure but in something too like pain; his lips were moving but Simon couldn’t hear him over the water, Jace was whispering so quickly and quietly that Simon couldn’t make it out until he had his ear almost against Jace’s lips—

 _“Don’t go, don’t go, please—”_ Over and over, the words spilling out of him like blood from a wound and into Simon like a blade; Jace’s eyes shut tight and his head ducked down and his whole body shaking, breaking, and if he’d taken up Simiel and thrust it through Simon’s heart it couldn’t have hurt more than this, couldn’t have hurt worse.

_“Don’t go, don’t leave me—”_

“Jace—” Simon’s voice broke; he swallowed the pieces and pressed Jace harder still against the glass so he could use his hand to hold Jace’s cheek, cup his face, “Jace, look at me, _look at me_ —”

Jace wouldn’t, though, his chest rising and falling so fast and bliss and anguish should never twist together this way, never-never, and the water on Simon’s face tasted like salt as something in him snapped, as he made a fist in Jace’s hair and wrenched his head back and the little bathroom seemed so dark, suddenly, dark as if the light had been blotted out by black wings, and all Simon knew was that he could not let this go, could not let this seed of terror germinate in his _aikane_ ’s heart; he would rip it out by the roots first. He pressed his lips against Jace’s ear and _snarled_ , low and soft, and Jace’s body clenched tight around his fingers at the sound, something like a whimper catching in his throat.

“By the Angel— _Simon_ —”

“Listen to me then, _monons-ror,_ _”_ Simon hissed; _sun of my heart, my heart’s sun_ and he was so _angry_ , so unspeakably enraged at them all, the whole damn world that had lodged this shard of fear in Jace; his breath hitched and snagged on grief he couldn’t look at, couldn’t, not now—“Listen, because I’m right here, I am _right here_ and nothing is going to take me away from you—I won’t let it, I _won’t_ , not demons or angels or the fucking Clave—” Fault lines ran through his voice, threatening to shatter it, break it, and his eyes were burning, fire in his throat and salt, he might have been crying but he couldn’t tell past Jace’s hitching breaths, the nails digging into his back like grappling hooks, as if Jace might fall, as if Simon would ever, _ever_ let that happen. “Do you hear me?” Simon demanded roughly, rubbing his cheek against Jace’s and trying just to breathe, trying to breathe past the idea of Jace being gone, ever. “I’m right here, right with you—I will not leave, I won’t go, for as long as you want me I am _yours_ , Jace, I’m yours and I’m here, I’m _here_ —”

Jace grit his teeth and came, convulsing around Simon’s fingers and even through his locked jaw Simon heard the broken, almost pained sound he made, unbearable bliss and relief striking a chord that lashed down Simon’s spine and dropped a struck match in the gunpowder, pulling him over the edge. And that was it; he pressed hard against Jace and went up in flames, gasping for breath with tears invisible on his cheeks, the pain of Jace’s nails sending him spiraling higher and his hips still jerking, his fingertips still stroking Jace’s insides—

They stilled, slowly. Aftershocks slid through them like waves of soft, rippling gold; both of them trembling, shivering under the warm water. Suddenly exhausted, Simon let his head fall forward until his forehead touched Jace’s. He couldn’t tell if the warmth running down his back was shower spray or blood.

He didn’t especially care.

When they’d both stopped shaking, Simon gently slid his fingers free. Jace made no sound, but he loosened his hold on Simon’s shoulders, his nails coming free as if they’d been hammered in.

Simon kissed him softly and washed his hand. Other than that, neither of them moved.

After an age, Jace sighed, a shaky, juddering sound, and brushed Simon’s nose with his. “Don’t go where I can’t follow, _aikane_ ,” he murmured, and the pleading note in his voice fractured Simon’s heart. “I can’t lose you. Do you understand? I can’t.”

Slowly and carefully, as if going to touch a wounded panther, Simon cupped Jace’s face between his palms. “You won’t,” he said softly, brushing his lips over Jace’s. “I’m right here. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

The touches melted into kisses, rich and sweet as mulled wine, unhurried and tender. Gradually, Jace relaxed against him, the heartbeat racing against Simon’s chest easing into an easier tempo, the tension in his arms and thighs fading away. When he unhooked his legs from around Simon’s waist it was without acknowledging his moment of vulnerability, and Simon didn’t push.

But he held his promise to his heart like a sword, and dared the world to try and make him break it.

*

“I feel like a LARPer in this thing,” Simon complained, twisting to try and see the back of his _cóada_ in the mirror.

“I don’t know what that is, but you look like an idiot. Here, let me do it.” Jace turned him around and began redoing Simon’s buttons.

“They’re fiddly,” Simon muttered, watching Jace through his half-lowered eyelids. He’d long ago come to the conclusion that you could put Jace in a potato sack and he’d still look at home at a Milan fashion week, but in the formal Shadowhunter wear he looked like he’d just stepped out of one of Simon’s more fantastical fantasies, royal and elven and magical. His hair was soft and fine from the shower, bright against the deep velvety black of his clothing; the silken _cóada_ , like a cross between a British frock coat and an Indian _sherwani_ , came down to just above his knees, hugging the lines of his body. When he moved, it was just possible to see the black-on-black embroidery covering nearly every inch of the fabric, from the high, stiff collar to the coat’s hems; runes that shimmered with the same blues and greens as a raven’s wing in the right light before becoming invisible again. The buttons were runes too, little knotted bars of blue goldstone like pieces of the night sky.

By contrast, Simon’s coat was almost dazzling. His _cóada_ was black, too, but the Marks embroidered on it—all the same celebratory runes as on the banners and ribbons decorating the Institute—were such a bright silver they all but glowed, like stars caught in cloth. Over his heart shone the circle of Morgenstern stars, and the delicate buttons were small pieces of _adamas_ that could have been mistaken for diamonds.

“I miss my jeans,” Simon sighed.

Jace pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “If you wore jeans to my dedication, I’d have to kill you.” He picked up the long sash waiting on the bed. “Last part.”

Simon eyed it dubiously, but obediently raised his arms so Jace could wind the long piece of fabric around his waist. Jace’s was black as ink, but Simon’s shimmered like moonlight on water, the most incredible silver colour he’d ever seen on a piece of clothing. “Cloth-of-silver?”

 _“Gealdach,”_ Jace corrected absently. “It’s faerie cloth. They spin it from moonlight.” Once the complex knot was safely tied, he slid Simiel through the sash, made sure the blade was secure, then stepped back to look his lover over.

“Well?” Simon asked jokingly when the silence stretched. “Am I presentable, or are you going to forbid me going out in public?”

Jace shook his head slightly, as if coming back to himself from somewhere far away. He still didn’t answer, though; instead he stepped in close and put his hands on Simon’s shoulders, using the hold to turn Simon back towards the mirror.

“See for yourself,” he said, slightly hoarse.

There had been more than a few dark moments, since discovering the Shadow World, that had forced Simon to realise he didn’t know himself as well as he’d thought he did. But until he glanced at the mirror, he’d never experienced the utter disassociation of being unable to recognise his own face.

It didn’t look like him, the figure staring back at him. The young man in the glass seemed taller than Simon, and harder, his eyes darker than Simon thought his were. The thin scar on his cheek was a warrior’s, and he wore a sword at his hip. Between the long, shining blade extending down from the sash of his belt and the strange, foreign coat he wore he looked like someone from another world, one with magic and monsters in it—and terror, and blood. The man in the mirror was a scion of angels, and he didn’t belong in Simon’s world.

Simon swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “I look like a Shadowhunter,” he whispered.

Jace smiled at him through the mirror as if that were a good thing, the best thing. Simon felt sick.

Jace smoothed the shoulders of Simon’s _cóada_. “We wear these for celebrations,” he said lightly. “Birthdays, acknowledgements, betrothals. Weddings.”

Had that been where Jace had gone in his head, when he’d seen Simon dressed like this? A wedding? As suddenly as he’d been sickened, Simon’s mouth went dry. “Yeah?” he asked, trying for Jace’s blitheness. “What’s an acknowledgement?”

 _No wedding-talk, Jace. Not even a little bit._ Not even with Simiel hanging at his waist for everyone to see, as much a promise as an engagement ring.

“I suppose it’s a bit like a mundane christening,” Jace said, “but without all the religion.” He pulled away, the warmth of his hands lingering on Simon’s shoulders through his coat. “It’s when a Nephilim baby is formally acknowledged by the Clave. The Silent Brothers write the child’s name in some book, and there’s a ritual to protect it from Infernal influences. That’s why Nephilim can’t be possessed.”

“By demons, anyway,” Simon murmured.

“True,” Jace acknowledged. “There’s nothing in there about keeping angels out.” Casually, he pulled the Fairchild ring from his finger and held it out to Simon. “Will you look after this for me?”

Simon took it automatically, his fingers closing around the band of smooth metal. “Sure, but—why?”

 _Your blood is my blood, your war is my war…_ They’d made that oath on their rings, so why did Jace want to take it off now? Simon’s body tightened, cold; had he changed his mind after all?

 _What, right after that—moment in the shower?_ Simon asked himself harshly. _You should trust him more than that._

Sure enough, Jace simply shrugged, not at all like someone about to give the _it’s not you it’s me_ talk. “It’s just part of the ceremony. You’re not supposed to wear any mark of your family; to represent that the Clave’s claim on you comes before all others.” He smiled at Simon. “I’ll put it back on the second it’s over.”

“Yeah, okay.” Simon put the ring in the pocket of his coat, trying to ignore the painful implication Jace seemed oblivious to. They’d made their family rings the symbols of their promises to each other, hadn’t they? Now, like this—it felt too much like Jace was saying his loyalty to the damned Clave came before his lov—came before whatever he felt for Simon.

_Their claim on you comes before mine… Is that just ceremonial, Jace? Or is that for real?_

_You should trust him more than that_ , he reminded himself again, but it didn’t help.

“We should get going,” Jace said. “It starts soon.”

“How do you always do that?” Simon demanded as they left. “You always know the time, but you never check the clock.”

“I’m just that good,” Jace said, and closed the door behind them.

*

Avoiding the Institute but for his training sessions with Jace meant that Simon didn’t know his way around very well. Of those areas he’d seen, he could find his room, the kitchen, and the training room without help, but not much else—and he was approximately 500% sure that he was only aware of a bare fraction of all the Institute contained.

So he wasn’t much surprised when the path to the _naos_ turned out to be in a part of the building he’d never set foot in before. It was easy to tell when they were getting close, though, because more of the ribbons and glass seraph blades had been hung up nearby, but it was so quiet that for a moment Simon thought they had made a wrong turn somewhere. This dedication thing was a big deal, that had been made abundantly obvious—so where was everybody? Shouldn’t there be voices, people talking and laughing before the ceremony started?

Jace, too, seemed to be looking for people, coming alert each time they approached a corner—and each time, when they walked around it and there was no one there, the faint shadow of anticipation in his face was snuffed out. The changes were so minute that anyone who didn’t know him would never have noticed, but Simon felt them like blows. He found himself tensing whenever they approached a turn in their path, anywhere that their line of sight was obscured enough for Jace to convince himself that whoever he was looking for was right around the corner—because without fail he caught that flicker of hope in Jace’s eyes, only to see it go out a mere breath later.

Simon was finally about to ask just who it was Jace was on the lookout for when they spotted Alec, waiting outside a closed door with his arms crossed over his chest. He could apparently read the question in Jace’s gaze as easily as Simon could, because he shook his head as they approached, regret and something bitter and angry passing over his features. “They’re not here.”

“Who’s not here?” Simon glanced between them, and for a moment he was struck by the image they made: Jace unarmed in unrelieved ebony, his hair gilded under the witchlights, and Alec ablaze in a _cóada_ of crimson and gold, the Lightwood flame burning on his breast and the gleam of a seraph blade at his hip stark against his dark hair. Opposing colours but linked hearts.

He could only imagine the masterpiece Clary would make of this, if she could paint them. Or his mom.

“Our—my parents,” Alec said, and his answer blurred with the glass shard of grief in Simon’s heart for a moment, the ache of guilt-pain- _I miss you_ that was his mom’s absence-illness. “I’m so sorry, Jace. I really thought they’d make it.”

Jace shrugged carelessly, and Simon wondered how many of his own shards Jace had shaken with the gesture, how badly they had cut. “It doesn’t matter,” the blond said breezily. “There’s no point in travelling all the way from Alicante just to stand outside a door, is there? Can’t blame them for staying away, really.”

“Why would they stay outside?” Simon asked. The question was automatic; he barely cared. Jace’s foster-parents weren’t here. They hadn’t come. Jace was swearing his life’s loyalty to the Clave in what Nephilim culture regarded as unquestioningly the most important occasion in a Shadowhunter’s life, and they weren’t here for it.

Alec shot him a look of dislike. “Only family are allowed at a dedication,” he said through gritted teeth.

Simon frowned at him, confused. “What, like blood-relatives? Then why are you here?”

This time Alec glared outright.

“Alec is my _parabatai_ ,” Jace said. “Legally, we’re the same person. Even if they tried to keep him out, anywhere I am, he is too.”

Well, that raised some lovely questions about just how many people Simon was actually sleeping with. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from blurting out _so how are you liking being in a threesome, Alec?_ , but it wasn’t as easy to banish the mental image of Alec in bed with him and Jace. La petite mort _takes on a whole new meaning when one of the triad wants to kill you._

No, that wasn’t fair. He was pretty sure Alec didn’t want him dead. Just…somewhere nice and far away. Like Antarctica.

Then what Jace had said hit him properly. “You’re _legally the same person?”_ he gaped. “How the fuck does that even _work?”_ Potential implications immediately began downloading into his brain. One snagged on Jace’s comment about weddings earlier and lit up like a Christmas tree. “Wait, does that mean if someone marries one of you, they’re really marrying you _both?”_

Jace’s eyes flashed bright with amusement, but Alec wasn’t impressed. “Why do you think the Clave gave Jace to us?” he asked. The words had sharp edges. “They thought he was Michael Wayland’s son, and _he_ was _parabatai_ to my father—which made my father Jace’s too, under the Law. But he isn’t anymore.”

“Alec,” Jace said warningly. The laughter had vanished from his face.

Alec looked away, his jaw hard and unforgiving as marble. He closed his eyes briefly, and when they opened again his expression was smooth, any trace of anger folded up and put away with a thoroughness Simon couldn’t comprehend. “We should head inside,” he said evenly, instead of whatever poison had been burning on his tongue a mere moment ago. “Jace? You ready?”

Simon glanced at Jace. He felt as if he’d swallowed Alec’s venom, as if it were congealing in his stomach.

 _Please don’t do this_.

The Fairchild ring weighed a world in his pocket.

Jace squared his shoulders and nodded, once. “Yes,” he said simply, as if it were nothing. As if he wasn’t about to place his life in the hands of a government that made _The Hunger Games_ look soft and fluffy.

At least the Capitol had only murdered twenty-three teenagers a year. How many Shadowhunter kids never came back from a night’s hunting?

But Simon had made his arguments before now—hours of arguments, the only real fight they’d ever had; _they’re corrupt and evil and how can you, how can you when you know what they’d do to you, to me, to us if they knew?_ —and he was silent now as Alec nodded in turn and pressed open the door.

 _It’s not about the Clave,_ Jace had told him, over and over. _It’s about the people we save._

But watching Jace walk to meet what he thought was his destiny felt an awful lot like watching him walk into damnation.

*

The _naos_ was a circular chamber of soft grey stone, deceptively simple and surprisingly lovely, with a graceful arched ceiling supported by smooth pillars. It was more like a Christian chapel than Simon had expected, but refreshingly empty; if there were no windows, there were no pews either, giving the room an open feel. Light came from dozens or perhaps hundreds of seraph blades held to the walls and pillars by slender bands of gold, all of them lit by that familiar white glow.

The swords were dazzling, but the moment Simon followed Jace and Alec inside his attention was locked to the statue on the other side of the round room, and he stopped dead.

He’d wondered, once before Renwicks and many times after, what Jonathan Shadowhunter had actually seen when he’d called on Heaven for help. It had been a thousand years ago; maybe Jonathan had called it an angel because that was the closest word they had back then for something so incredibly other and strange and glorious. Maybe Raziel had even been some kind of alien; that seemed about as likely as an angel.

Here, then, was his answer.

At first glance, the statue was recognisably humanoid; two arms and two legs, a head, a torso. But, carved all of _adamas_ , it glowed, the same soft, seraphic light as from the swords on the walls beaming from it onto the cool white floor, and where its eyes should have been there was only solid gold, blind and all-seeing and unreadable, unknowable. Two pairs of sweeping wings—the upper pair half again as large as the lower—rose up behind it, so exquisitely shaped that Simon forgot they were made of crystal and not muscle and bone sheathed in feathered silk. But despite the wings, Simon looked at it and thought of Abigor, and Abbadon. The angel was as genderless as they had been, impossibly androgynous from the curve of its cheek to the swell of its hip beneath its cloth-of-gold tunic; male and female and both and neither, with the golden Marks set into the smooth arms and legs and the side of its neck.

 _Raziel_. Simon felt a spark of something that might have been recognition. _Is something like that really inside me?_

It couldn’t be possible. Could it?

Standing before the statue was a Silent Brother, his bone-coloured robes replaced by golden ones for the occasion. They were still dark, though, a rich old-gold much more sober than Raziel’s shining dress, but it was the thought that counted.

 _*Let the neophyte and his witnesses come forward.*_ The Silent Brother’s voice was loud and commanding in Simon’s mind.

Without hesitation—and oh, Simon wished he’d hesitate; wished he would give the slightest sign that he had doubts, that he’d heard Simon’s objections and concerns the last few weeks!—Jace strode forward, his head held high. Alec and Simon followed more slowly, flanking his either side, Alec a pace behind on his right, Simon on his left. Simon stopped when Alec did, but Jace kept on until he reached the circle of stars engraved on the floor, a foot or so from the Silent Brother and Raziel.

The Silent Brother’s examined Jace from within the depths of his cowl. _*Name thyself, neophyte, before Raziel your progenitor.*_

Jace’s hands were clasped at the base of his spine. “Janim Christopher, Brother.”

_*Of what family line?*_

Simon couldn’t see Jace’s face, but he wanted to. “Morgenstern,” Jace said after a pause.

If the Silent Brother had an opinion on that, he didn’t express it. Instead he said only, _*Who stands as witness for this boy?*_

“Alexander Gideon, of the line of Lightwood,” Alec said.

For a moment, Simon considered throwing protocol to the winds and claiming his mother’s chosen name, his _real_ name. _Simon Fray._ He swallowed the words and held them close, like an ember in a cold wind. “Symeon Vangelis,” he answered instead, the dual names bitter as bile on his tongue. “Of the line of Morgenstern.”

 _*Janim Christopher, your kin stand witness. The Angel stands witness. The gathered lights of those who came before you stand witness.*_ The priest gestured a thin hand at the seraph blades on the walls, and suddenly it came together in Simon’s mind; they weren’t just decorations, not just pretty lights. They were the swords of fallen Shadowhunters.

_*Before them all, do you vow to take up the mandate bestowed upon our people by Raziel, to destroy the Infernal wherever you should find it?*_

“I do.” There was no hesitation this time, as there had been with the Morgenstern name. Jace’s voice filled the room, clear and strong.

_*Will you dedicate your life to the protection of the weak, even to the laying down of that life should you save even one soul by so doing?*_

“I will.” Jace’s spine was so straight, as sure and perfect as one of the room’s pillars. “The whole world will be my charge.”

_*Are you loyal to Clave and Consul, to take their will as that of Raziel’s representatives upon this earth? To live and die by the Law of our people, and so be a light against the darkness, fulfilling the purpose for which you were born?*_

“I am.”

The Silent Brother bowed his head. _*Then kneel before Raziel, son of the Nephilim, and give your oath to him.*_

Jace knelt, dropping to one knee in a graceful, fluid motion, his silken coat pooling around him like a spill of ink or night on the pale floor. And the _naos_ was so quiet, so still, that they might have been outside of time, all of them, living a moment that had been lived a thousand times before. How many had gone through this same ceremony in this same room, before Jace? How many had spoken the same words, across time and throughout history?

Their father. Their mother.

“I hereby swear,” Jace said, his head bent, “I will be Raziel’s Sword, extending his arm to strike down evil. I will be Raziel’s Cup, offering my blood to our mission. I will be Raziel’s Mirror; when my enemies behold me, let them see his face in mine!”

The words rang out like a challenge and Simon could have sworn the light from the seraph blades grew brighter, that the statue of Raziel blazed up in response to the triumph and determination ringing in Jace’s voice.

“I hereby promise: I will serve with the angels’ courage. I will serve with the angels’ justice. And I will serve with the angels’ mercy.”

A shiver of unease ran down Simon’s spine. _An angel’s mercy is no thing to cherish,_ something in him whispered. _The justice of angels destroyed Gomorrah and turned Lot’s wife to salt._ Were these the traits Jace was supposed to embody now? A mercy that was no mercy, and a justice that salted the earth behind it?

“Until such time as I die, I will be Nephilim,” Jace swore. “I pledge myself in Covenant as a Nephilim, and I pledge my life and my family to the Clave of Idris.”

 _You don’t pledge me,_ Simon thought fiercely, making his own oath. _I will not belong to them. Not now, and not ever._

It hit him then, the sense of an impassable gulf cutting between Jace and him, forged of this dedication. Simon would never bow his head to this the way Jace had done; he would never say those words and let them bind him. He would never feel Jace’s loyalty to the Clave or the Covenant, would never obey unquestioningly, would never call himself a Nephilim unto death. After today, there would always be this thing between them, and not for the first time Simon was afraid of how to reconcile it with who and what they were.

_Can you still love me, if you’re promised to them?_

He must have missed a few moments of the ceremony, because the Silent Brother was holding out a stele and Jace had risen to his feet, his hands carefully undoing the small, fiddly buttons of his _cóada_. The silence had the weight of stone, broken only by the soft rustles of fabric as Jace let the coat fall from his shoulders to puddle at his feet. Beneath it he was shirtless, but he bore his runes and scars like a king’s robes, proudly, magnificently, and despite everything Simon _was_ proud of him, a little. Jace was swearing his life to protecting mundanes, who would never know of his sacrifices or thank him for them, and whatever Simon thought of the Clave, of the Nephilim’s world, that was still something great.

The Silent Brother pressed the stele to Jace’s chest, and Jace’s hands remained loose and open as the Mark was drawn, the rune which would brand him the Clave’s as the blood in his veins branded him Raziel’s.

Blood they shared, Simon reminded himself, trying to take a twisted comfort from the fact. That same blood made him Simon’s, too, and Simon his, whatever else happened.

*In hoc signo vinces.* The priest withdrew a few steps, leaving Jace alone in the center of the room, circled by the stars at his feet and bathed in Raziel’s light. _*It is done. Once a boy, now a man of the Nephilim.*_ Putting away his stele, the Silent Brother bowed, clasping his hands together. _*_ Se lumen proferre _, Janim Christopher, son of Raziel.*_

Jace pressed his fist to his heart, but said nothing; the ritual responses seemed to be over. He was breathing hard, and Simon wondered how badly the Clave’s rune had hurt him. All Marks burned, but some were much worse than others.

Alec stepped forward, almost to Jace’s circle. “His kin thank you, Brother Zachariah,” he said formally. “You would be welcome at the celebration,” he added in a more normal tone, making it clear that it was a genuine offer.

Simon briefly tried to imagine the bone-priest in the middle of one of Magnus’ parties, and almost split his brain in two. _It would be like a meeting of matter and anti-matter!_

As if he agreed the Silent Brother bowed his head slightly, hiding more deeply in the hood of his robe. _*My thanks, but I must be going. The Bone City requires its guardians.*_ He dipped his head towards Jace. _*Congratulations, Morgenstern. I do not doubt you will return your name to its former glory.*_

“Thank you,” Jace said evenly.

The Silent Brother left then, retreating through a well-camouflaged door behind one of the pillars. The instant he was gone Alec had his hands on Jace’s shoulders, turning him around, and Jace was grinning, relieved and flushed with victory and an electric kind of happiness; “Let me see,” Alec was saying, laughing, sharing the joy in a way Simon couldn’t, “where did he put it?”

There it was, centered below Jace’s solar plexus, the symbol Simon had only seen in the Codex before now; four interlocked Cs like sharp crescent moons, etched black and dark and immutable on Jace’s golden skin. Simon’s eyes slid away from it, sickened with himself for being unable to understand or share Jace’s obvious elation; sickened, too, with what that symbol meant, what it stood for. It wasn’t a brand; it was a stain, a necrotic corruption of Jace’s perfection.

_The Law is hard, but it is the Law… Angels’ justice; angels’ mercy… Loyal to Clave and Consul… their will as that of Raziel’s representatives on this earth…_

When Jace turned to him, Simon tried to smile, because it was no use hurting Jace’s feelings. Done was done. Most runes burned out when their power was used up, but others were permanent, and there was no undoing Jace’s oaths now. They would just have to make the best of it.

Jace grinned at him, his face alight with excitement, and went back to laughing with Alec. As if this were the beginning of something wonderful, and not the end of it.

* * *

 

NOTES

 _Naos_ is more or less ‘shrine’ in Ancient Greek.

Capsaicin is the thing that makes chili peppers burn mammalian tissue.

 _Monons-ror_ —literally ‘heart-sun’ or ‘sun of my heart’. (Enochian)

 _In hoc signo vinces_ —Latin for ‘in this sign will you conquer’.

 _Se lumen proferre_ —more or less ‘show yourself/offer yourself as a light (to the world)’ in Latin.

I know the canon symbol for the Clave is four Cs ‘back to back’, but I really think that’s ugly and prefer the interlocked Cs design I’ve seen around. For a comparison of the two images, check out my tumblr post http://siavahdainthemoon.tumblr.com/post/108181178392/comparison-of-the-canon-clave-symbol-four-cs-back


	7. Things Unspoken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to meeeeeee~! Yes, it's my birthday today, and because I am much more comfortable giving presents than receiving them - a new chapter! 8D
> 
> This is ENTIRELY UN-BETAED, OKAY, because I was rushing. The entire fic is going to get polished once it's done, but if I wanted this up today I couldn't send it off to the beta. So. I hope you guys like it, and please feel free to point out any typos and things so I can fix 'em later!
> 
>  **Trigger Warning** for light bondage themes towards the end.

“Drink?”

Simon startled. “Sorry, what?”

Isabelle frowned a little. She was holding two glasses, one of them extended towards him, but now she drew it back. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, just—” He waved his hand around vaguely. “Little bit overwhelmed, you know?” He forced himself to smile.

And it _was_ fairly overwhelming. They were back in Magnus’ loft, because Magnus was the only one of them who knew enough people to make up a party, and the Shadowhunters had nowhere to throw a birthday bash even if they’d had a guest list because Downworlders were pretty much _personae non gratae_ at an Institute unless it was an emergency. It was a very different sort of party to the one where Lint had performed, maybe in deference to the occasion, or just to Nephilim snobbery; a vampire band was playing music that was closer to classical than dance club, the melody slow and languid as falling snow and dripping honey. More vampires and faeries drifted through the apartment in their best dress and on their best behavior, nibbling canapés and sipping unearthly-colored cocktails and having a ball. Literally: there were no miniskirts in sight tonight, no denim or plastic jewelry. Everyone had gone all out, so that everywhere Simon looked he saw silk and brocade, elaborate edifices of hair studded with jewels and flowers, shimmering wings trailing clouds of ribbons and rings burning like fiery rainbows on white hands. A space had been set aside for dancing, but it wasn’t any kind of dancing Simon knew; this was slow and formal and elaborate and _old_ , every step overhung with a sense of ancient grandeur, ancient grace. He’d been watching it when Izzy offered him a drink.

“It’s pretty fabulous,” Izzy agreed, looking around with a smile. As she turned her head, the lights caught on her earrings, a pair of golden lion-heads. “I’m so glad Magnus did this for Jace, I don’t know what we would’ve done otherwise.”

Simon tried to imagine the Shadowhunters hiring a community center for a party, and couldn’t do it. “Yeah,” he agreed. Then, because he had a feeling he already knew the answer, he flicked his fingers at Isabelle’s ear, careful not to actually touch her. “What’s up with these?”

It might have been the light, but Simon could have sworn that a flush rose on Isabelle’s cheeks. “Have you never seen earrings before, mundie boy?” she asked archly.

“Uh huh.” Simon grinned at her. “And you just _happened_ to pick lions to go with the Gryffindor colors?”

Definitely a blush. Like Alec, Isabelle was sheathed in the Lightwood colors, a form-fitted bodice almost entirely covered in gold embroidery that dissolved into billowing skirts of crimson gossamer below the waist. The ruby pendant she’d worn to Lint’s gig at Vatican blazed at her throat.

She straightened and raised her chin. “Gryffindor is a noble and ancient house,” she said slowly, her tone daring him to contradict her.

“You’re thinking of the Blacks,” Simon told her, because he had no sense of self-preservation at all, and thus began a furious debate over _Harry Potter_ trivia. A segue into headcanons revealed that Clary had already introduced Izzy to fanfiction, and they started swapping recs before Simon thought to ask where Izzy was getting her internet access.

“Oh, I bought a laptop,” Izzy said blithely. “And Clary showed me how to set up those little internet wands.”

“The what?” Simon asked, baffled.

“You know—they look like this,” she set the drinks down on a table and sketched a shape with her hands, “and you plug them into your laptop, and then you have the internet.”

When it clicked, Simon had to fight not to laugh. “It’s not a wand, it’s a USB,” he told her. “You’re talking about mobile broadband.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever. So long as I can get to fanfiction.net, I don’t care what it’s called.”

Simon nodded sagely at this.

They were in the middle of a discussion of the cultural importance of fanfiction versus traditional literature—“It’s unrestricted storytelling and social commentary all wrapped up into one!”—when Simon caught sight of Clary near the doorway. Grinning, he waved her over.

“You look great,” he told her when she joined them, trying to ignore the wreath of sparks around his throat that looking at her still gave him. “Thank you so much for coming, I don’t have a clue who any of these people are.”

She grinned at him. “You’re welcome.” In a boy’s blazer of sapphire velvet with a jeweled firefly in her hair, she looked more at home in this crowd than Simon felt. She glanced at the two drinks on the table. “Is one of those for me, and will it turn me into a mouse again?”

“It is, and it won’t.” Isabelle plucked up the glass she’d meant for Simon and proffered it elegantly to Clary. Simon found he didn’t mind. “It’s a love potion.”

Clary froze with the glass almost to her lips. Silently, she and Simon both stared at Isabelle.

Who rolled her eyes. “By the Angel, not _that_ kind! It’s apple schnapps and strawberry liqueur, jeez.”

“This is how much I trust you,” Clary said, and took a sip. Paused, and squinted at Isabelle. “She’s telling the truth,” she declared. “You’re looking fabulous tonight, bestie, but I’m not in love with you.”

“I think I’ll survive the disappointment,” Isabelle drawled, and the two girls smirked at each other over the rims of their glasses. Simon had to resist the urge to back away slowly.

A few minutes later, Izzy excused herself to go mingle, and Simon raised his eyebrows at his best friend. “Fanfiction?”

Clary grinned innocently at him. “What? It was the logical step once she finished _Deathly Hallows._ ”

Simon pointed his finger at her. “You are responsible for this. If she starts writing slash, I am not telling her brother.”

Clary laughed. “Oh, can I? I want to see his face when he hears about Snarry.”

Instantly Simon recoiled, sticking his fingers into his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. “La la la, I didn’t hear that, Harry/Snape is not a thing, nope.”

“Well, maybe not _canon_ Snape, but the version fandom has collectively agreed to believe in…”

“That I can accept,” Simon said grandly, and removed his fingers from his ears.

“This isn’t much of a party,” Clary said a little later. They’d been talking about the difference between fandom’s collective rewrite of certain characters and their canon personalities—Snape was Clary’s favorite example, and Draco Simon’s—and which version was more important, but now she was looking around the loft with a little frown.

Simon shrugged. “It’s this huge formal thing, you know? A dedication. More like first communion or confirmation than a birthday.” Clary’s family were Jewish, and Jocelyn had never encouraged Simon to be religious, but there were enough Roman Catholics at St Xavier’s that they both knew the bare details of the rites.

“So where’re the parents?” Clary asked, sipping at her drink. “Alec and Izzy’s parents, I mean—they adopted Jace, didn’t they? Shouldn’t they be here?”

“You’d think.”

Her gaze sharpened, and he realized he’d let some of the bitterness he was trying to suppress into his voice.

“It’s, um—it’s a little complicated.” Her eyebrows rose, and he snorted, hearing what he’d just said. “Yeah, you’re right, what hasn’t been? Okay, so, um—only blood-relatives are allowed into the ceremony, right? The actual dedication bit. So _I_ could be there, because I’m his brother, and Alec could be there, because apparently being _parabatai_ makes you _legally the same person_ —” Clary’s eyebrows almost vanished into her hair. “—I know, right? I don’t even know. What. But yeah, so we could go, but not—not Alec’s parents. I mean they couldn’t have been in the room. So they just…didn’t bother coming at all, I think, because of that.” He waved his hand to take in the apartment. “Not even to the after-party.” He paused. “And you know, Alec got hurt last night, you’d think they’d come running—”

“He got hurt?” Clary interjected. “What happened? Let me guess,” she said dryly, seeing his expression. “It’s complicated?”

“That’s kind of an understatement…”

Haltingly, trying to keep his voice low because he didn’t want this story to get around the New York Downworld, Simon recounted the events of the last 24 hours or so, from Abigor’s attack to the angelic possession theory of this morning.

“It does sound like they might be on to something,” Clary admitted when he was done. “That’s two demons who’ve called you a singer now—and angels are all tied up with music, aren’t they? Maybe that’s what they meant.”

“Or maybe they were referring to my excellent musical skills. I mean— _angels?_ For real? That’s—it’s so huge, Lewis.”

“What does this mean for the existence of God?” Clary mused. “Does the existence of angels verify the existence a higher power? Or is it just that the truth of what angels are has been corrupted by history, and there’s no connection between the human understanding of ‘God’ and what we call angels?”

Simon stared at her. “Have you been reading philosophy textbooks again?” he asked weakly.

“No, seriously,” she insisted. “Doesn’t it bother you? You have an entire race of people who believe they’re descended from angels—how can you not take that and apply it to the question of a higher power?”

“The Yazīdī claim to be separate from the rest of humanity too, but you’ve never used them as evidence for the existence of God,” Simon pointed out, torn between being intrigued and terrified. The thought that the blood in his veins was evidence for God being real or not real had occurred to him before—how could it not?—but he’d never pushed the thought too far. It was too much for a seventeen-year-old to properly grasp.

At least, this seventeen-year-old.

“The Yazīdī are genetically identical to the rest of us; the Nephilim have empirical evidence backing up their claim,” Clary argued. “I’ve seen you and Jace move, and you’ve told me about what you can do. None of it’s within the realm of human possibility. And that’s not bringing up the whole magical tattoo thing. Luke said anyone can draw a rune, right?”

“Yes…?”

“But only Nephilim can have them on their skin and not turn into barbeque,” Clary said triumphantly. “Implying a biological difference, something that makes their skin different to—mine.” Simon knew what that pause was for. She’d been about to say ‘yours and mine’, but that wasn’t true anymore, was it?

“Maybe Raziel wasn’t an angel, though,” Simon said slowly. “Maybe ‘angel’ was just the closest Jonathan Shadowhunter could get to describing what he’d seen.”

Clary’s expression turned speculative. “You’re thinking aliens?”

“Maybe?”

Her mouth quirked. “You think proving God exists is scary, but you’re okay with the existence of a vastly tech-superior alien civilization? I’m not sure you have your priorities straight, Simon.”

“Nothing about me is straight,” he agreed, just to make her laugh—which she did, her red hair tumbling over her shoulders like a sheet of flaming silk, mature and elegant and chic in her blue velvet with a glass in her hand. He wondered if he would ever stop being in love with her.

“Seriously, though,” Clary said, apparently oblivious to the admiring glances she was drawing from all corners of the room—or probably just accepting them as her due—“how are you feeling? Are you okay?”

“About possibly being the living incarnation of evidence for the existence of God?”

He ducked her swipe with the ease of long experience.

 _“No,”_ she said, but she was trying not to smile. “About all this. Jace’s dedication.”

“Oh.” Simon swallowed. “Not really,” he said quietly.

She tilted her head a little, expectant.

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “He swore himself to them,” he said, barely able to shape the words. He spoke softly, because they were surrounded by vamps and faeries and some of them would be too happy to take advantage of dissent in the Shadowhunter ranks, probably. “Those psychos who send—who send _kids_ to kill demons. They’d destroy Alec’s entire life if they knew he liked guys, take his Marks and his family, his inheritance. Chuck him out on the streets of a world he doesn’t know. These are people who _unmake you_ if you break their rules, and the oath Jace swore? He promised to obey them like they were Raziel’s representatives on earth. All this quasi-religious crap like they missed the memo that the Dark Ages are over, but that’s what it boiled down to. Him being willing to die and obey their every fucking whim.” It was probably a good thing Simon didn’t have a drink. With his new sporadic super-strength, he might have broken it, written his disbelieving anger in blood and liquor and broken glass to rain down on the floor. “How could he do that?”

Clary breathed in deeply through her nose, looking pensive. “He doesn’t know any better,” she said finally. Sadly.

True. But, “We’re all here fucking celebrating it,” Simon muttered, plaintive anguish staining his voice midnight-blue. “We know better. What are _we_ doing here?”

“Well, _I’m_ here because I have a fabulous date,” Clary said tartly. “Who I see has just arrived. But you?” She squeezed Simon’s forearm. “You’re here to support somebody you love, even if you don’t agree with his choices. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

Simon stared at her. _I love you_ , he wanted to say, because just then the love he felt for her was almost overwhelming, welling up and out of his heart in spills of molten opal and emerald. But he didn’t say it, because she’d made it clear she didn’t love him back like that, and that was the end of it.

“Thanks,” he said instead, a little choked. She smiled.

And the rest of what she’d said hit him like a brick. “A date?”

“And there she is!” Clary said brightly. “I’ll find you later, okay?” She swept away in a swirl of velvet and sunset hair like a queen, and much as Simon wanted to claim she’d learned the art of the dramatic exit from the Shadowhunters—she’d been leaving him gaping after her since she was seven.

*

It had seemed like an obvious thing, when Simon had told her about Jace’s dedication party, to invite Olianthe too. They’d met at one of Magnus’ parties, and here was another; it felt like completing a circle, and once it was whole maybe it could be opened, and they could see what might come out of it.

_I open at the close._

It was hard to admit it, even to herself, but Clary was a little nervous to see the faerie girl again. With everything that had happened to Simon, she’d been too distracted to think about magical girls with wicked smiles for a little while—and then she’d found a tiny note tucked into the flower pot of her mother’s African violets, folded into an envelope the size of Clary’s thumbnail. Olianthe’s mother had set her daughter a task which would take her away from the city for a while, but Olianthe would ‘cherish the chance’ to see Clary when she got back. If Clary was still amenable?

Clary had written back—painstakingly, to keep her script almost as small as Olianthe’s—to tell her that yes, she was still amenable, and perhaps Olianthe could try to be back in town in time for Jace’s dedication party?

The letter Clary discovered wedged under her windowsill said that yes, Olianthe thought she could manage that.

There had been more little notes, which continued to appear in delightfully strange places; dolls-house envelopes that tumbled out of the cereal box in the morning, blue and gold among the raisins in her muesli; miniscule scrolls shorter than her pinkie finger waiting for her in her jewelry box; tiny letters found wrapped around the ink tube of her favorite ballpoint pen. Olianthe didn’t say what she was doing, and Clary didn’t ask; instead, she read about the sight of selkies playing under moonlight on the coast of Ireland, how their soft seal-skins turned to silver in the ink-dark water. Olianthe told her about the volcano-forged Giant’s Causeway in the north, with its thousands of perfect hexagonal pillars born in another age, and Newgrange, built when the wheel was still new by humans who wanted to capture the sun.

 _‘My people helped them,’_ she wrote. _‘We were the only ones in those days—there were no vampires or werewolves yet, no Nephilim, no warlocks. There was only us and you in all the world.’_

Clary had spent a lot of time trying to imagine what that was like. And then wondering if she wanted to know whether Olianthe had been alive then.

She’d left her replies in the oddest places she could think of; tucked under the roots of the tree on the street outside her house; at the bottom of her pencil case; inside the case of her _Firefly_ DVD. Olianthe never left a single one unanswered; however she was getting them, she was thorough and never missed one.

It had felt surprisingly good to confide in someone. She couldn’t tell Olianthe everything, because some of it wasn’t hers to tell and anyway, she didn’t really know the faerie girl yet, didn’t know if she could be truly trusted. But it was a relief to tell someone how angry she was to see Simon so hurt, and how helpless she felt when she couldn’t make it better. It was easier to write, rather than say to someone’s face, that she still had nightmares about Valentine, about how sure she’d been that he was going to kill her when she missed shooting him at Renwicks.

 _‘I haven’t missed a shot like that in a long time,’_ she told Olianthe, far away in Ireland. _‘There was just something about him—in his face, or the way he looked at me. I don’t know, honestly, but it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Like I was already dead._

_‘Also, I think I’m losing my eyesight, trying to read these things!’_

The next morning there had been a magnifying glass under her pillow, an exquisitely beautiful thing with a silver handle shaped like a unicorn.

Clary had it now, a comfortable weight in her blazer’s inner pocket, attached to her coat on a chain like a pocket watch. It steadied her as she approached the girl who was a faerie princess.

“I may have to kidnap your tailor,” she announced. “Good _lord and lady_ , what is that dress!”

Olianthe laughed, a rich, boyish laugh that didn’t care if it called attention to itself. But it _was_ a beautiful dress—Clary had expected something like the golden suit Olianthe had worn last time, but this was a long streak of black. The dress itself clung to every smooth curve and ended a few inches above Olianthe’s knees, a style that would have suited a CEO or an undercover assassin with equal ease. Her legs were sheathed in ebony leggings that dissolved into ankle boots, their heels sharp enough that they probably constituted weapons in their own right. But it was the long half-cloak that made Clary’s heart pound, a heavy veil of fabric that fell from Olianthe’s waist to brush the floor. Its dark gold lining matched the faerie girl’s gloves, and the shining golden crane, its wings outspread, emblazoned on her chest.

“Your compliments are odd things, Clary.” But Olianthe’s peacock-feather eyes were smiling. She had tied her hair in a knot at the top of her skull, like the crest of a Roman helmet, and it spilled down her back like a waterfall. “But I will accept them nonetheless.” Blue and green and gold shimmered in her eyes as she looked Clary over, clearly enjoying the sight. “As I hope you will accept mine.”

Clary grinned. “Consider them accepted.” She glanced to either side. “Where’s your retinue?”

Olianthe tilted her head. “My retinue?”

“You know, the guy with the lion hair that was with you last time. Interrupted us when you had to go.”

The memory of just what the little leonine faerie had interrupted passed between them, a jolt of something sweet and glittering. Clary raised her drink to her lips to cover her suddenly dry mouth.

“Evondas is with his pride tonight,” Olianthe said. “I am here as your guest, not a representative of the court, so I need no escort to see I behave.” Her smirk jolted down Clary’s spine.

“Oh?” she heard herself say. “Should I be warning Magnus to keep an eye on you?”

“That depends,” Olianthe answered, “on how much you want me to behave.”

Clary eyed her over the rim of her glass. “It might be possible to get away with some mischief,” she said archly. “If you’re clever about it.”

Olianthe’s smirk widened. “Then I shall endeavor to be clever,” she purred. Stepping forward, she offered Clary her arm. “Shall I introduce you around?”

Clary debated it a moment, then lightly linked her arm with Olianthe’s. “Why not?” It could only be useful to meet and greet the greater powers among the city’s Downworld—and unlike chit-chatting with human elite, this was probably a lot less likely to be boring. “Lead on, princess.”

*

It was taking everything Alec had to plant his feet and stay upright.

Nothing outside of himself felt real. The party, the guests; it was all a fever-dream, heat and shadows and far-away voices mouthing meaningless gibberish to him and expecting some kind of answers. They were distant, far-off mirages—distant, and simultaneously pressing in on him; heavy, weighted, hot. Crushing his ribcage against his lungs, cutting off his air, burning against his skin.

The pain sapped his energy as surely as any vampire, turned his bones to fiery lead. So heavy. So exhausted. His synapses were sodden fuses, firing sluggishly, through heavy fog. It took an inordinate amount of effort to remember to smile when a new face appeared in front of him, and more to actually move his mouth.

He was the acting Head of the Institute, and these were important players in the city’s Downworld. He had a responsibility to be here, to talk with these people and keep his fingertip on the city’s pulse. To make them feel that the Shadowhunters were paying attention to them, that their concerns were heard.

He felt like he was bleeding out.

The wound in him was throbbing, ragged-edged. It hadn’t gone away. The pain hadn’t dulled, as a physical injury would have; it refused to be accommodated or adjusted to, staying loud and raw and immediate. And there was nothing he could do. With a broken arm you could be careful not to jostle it; you could put it in a sling and favor it. But there was no splint for this, no Mark to smooth away the agony and repair the hurt. There was no way to move so as not to pull at the wound, no medicine to drink. Only constant, mindless pain.

Something had been ripped out of him, and it wasn’t coming back.

He couldn’t leave. Head of the Institute, and if the Downworlders saw weakness in him there would be trouble. They didn’t have enough Shadowhunters to deal with trouble, so he couldn’t leave. Couldn’t sway on his feet, or breathe too fast, or lose track of the conversation, because they were vampires and fey and they would notice things a human never would.

_Make it stop._

The glass was an anchor in his hand, grounding, impossibly heavy. Lifting it to his lips sent fractures snaking through the bones of his hands, his arm; tendons creaked in protest.

But the burn of the alcohol dulled the edges of the screaming-seeping-weeping pain, just a little.

He had another, and another one after that. Jace’s worry for him—constant, warm, trying to bandage what was gapingbleedingwounded and unable to do it—spiked, but Alec didn’t care, wasn’t able to muster the effort to care. He wanted poppy-juice and a room with a lock on the door, somewhere he could sleep and escape the Orcus-deep emptiness savaged in his chest; he wanted the pain to _stop_ , or at least wanted the reassurance that this would not continue endlessly, that he would only have to bear it for so long and no longer. The thought of a future with this agony gaped open beneath his feet, bottomless: how could he hunt if he could barely breathe, how could he guard Izzy and Jace if it was an effort just to walk and talk and lift a glass? How could he be a Shadowhunter at all?

This couldn’t be the work of an angel. Unless it was a punishment _(for wanting Magnus, Jace, for the pictures in the books Simon had given him)_ but that felt like arrogance, that his crime could be so large as to demand the attention of celestial forces. There had to be other Shadowhunters who felt like he did…

And Jonathan Shadowhunter, Alec reminded himself. The first _agela_. It almost hurt to consider the idea that he wasn’t wrongtwistedbroken, to question the Law like that, but if Jonathan Shadowhunter had been—what was the mundie word, _bisexual_ , that was it—then how could it be against Heaven to be gay?

There was the angel mark on his palm, hidden under his glove. But Greater Demons had been angels once. There wasn’t enough documentation to say whether the touch of an ex-angel left the mark too; maybe it did, and no one knew because those who met with Greater Demons usually just died.

“Are you all right?”

Alec blinked. His body was so heavy; he wished he could take it off like a shirt, leave it lying on the floor and drift away. It took him too long to recognize the voice as Magnus’, to meet those gold-green eyes and see a—a friend, and not a stranger. “I’m fine,” he said, because that was what you did, because to be wounded was to be weak.

“You’re very pale,” Magnus said, his voice low. “Have you eaten anything?”

Alec slogged his way through the fog _(achingbreakingbroken)_ to think about it, and shook his head.

“Maybe you should.” Magnus was frowning, the beautiful planes of his face lined with concern. “Or you could rest. You could go lie down, and I’ll bring you something to eat—”

Alec’s stomach heaved. “No,” he said quickly, his gorge rising sudden and unbidden. “Please don’t. I—I’m fine.”

“Liar,” Magnus said without missing a beat. “You didn’t call Loss, did you?”

Loss. Loss? Vaguely, Alec remembered Magnus telling them to get Alec to the warlock healer, before Simon was up this morning. “There wasn’t time,” Alec said honestly.

Magnus twisted his wrist, and suddenly there was a phone in it. “I’ll call her now then,” he began, flicking it open and touching the screen with his thumb. “You really don’t—”

“I can’t do this now.” It was meant to be only a thought, but after a pause Alec realized he’d spoken aloud, each word dropping from his lips like a stone. “I’m sorry,” he added, because he had to, because that was what you did—because he was about to fall like a tree and he had no energy to spare for Magnus’ concern, as heartwarming as it was. Everything he had was going into just _functioning_. “Excuse me.”

He was too exhausted for guilt as he turned away and headed for the refreshments table. He needed another drink.

*

When Clary left to say hi to Olianthe—that was her name, wasn’t it?—Simon was almost instantly swamped by Downworlders wanting to meet the long-lost and now-infamous Symeon Morgenstern. It was something no one had warned him to expect, and Simon desperately tried not to lose his cool or his temper as faerie after faerie and vampire after vampire asked him why his mother had faked her death and hidden him away.

“Raised as a _mundane!”_ more than one busy-body exclaimed—with scandalized delight or horror or amusement. “Oh, you poor _thing!_ Are we all very strange to you still?”

Simon grit his teeth and tried to smile, all too aware that this was Jace’s night and he shouldn’t ruin it by tossing his drink in the faces of the guests.

Especially since he still didn’t have a drink.

It made sense, really, when he made himself be fair: everyone here knew the story of the Circle and the Uprising, and Simon’s mom had been heir to one of the great Shadowhunter dynasties. The burning of Morgenstern manor, the deaths of such an illustrious family, the way they’d died… It made for riveting gossip, and now here he was, Symeon Morgenstern not just back from the dead, but having been raised a mundie! Of course they wanted every detail.

Thank the Time Lords no one knew about him and Jace, at least. _That_ didn’t bear thinking about.

Escaping to grab himself a drink, Simon allowed himself a quick glance Jace’s way, his heart in his throat. Their moment in the shower this morning felt like a dream, far away and impossible; surely it couldn’t exist in the same world where he and Jace hadn’t exchanged more than five words since the end of the ceremony? The same world in which Jace’s gaze slid away from him each time he looked Simon’s way, in which he melted into conversations with men and women Simon didn’t know every time Simon tried to approach him.

What had he done to make Jace avoid him like this?

Trying to ignore the fist of hurt in the pit of his stomach, Simon poured himself a glass of cider—he had zero desire to get drunk in this company, even if no one seemed to care about underaged kids drinking—and wondered how long he would be expected to stay. If he left soon, he might be able to make the visiting hours at the hospital.

Would Jocelyn have come to Jace’s dedication, if she could have?

Alec came up beside him. Without looking at or speaking to Simon, he picked up a bottle of something that definitely wasn’t cider and started pouring it into a glass.

Simon did a double-take. “Are you okay?” he blurted. Alec’s skin was nearly as white as some of the vampires’, and the edges of his hairline were damp, as if he’d been sweating. But it wasn’t that warm in here…

Alec threw back his drink in one long swallow, then set it back down on the table. “No,” he said after a pause. “I don’t think I am.”

Simon was thrown. “Do you—can I do anything?” he asked, acutely aware of how lame the question was.

Alec turned to look at him, disbelieving. _“You?”_

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Simon said dryly. “I’ve been known to help now and then, in my time.”

Alec shook his head. “All you ever do is make things worse.”

Stunned, Simon said nothing as Alec poured himself another drink. “And fuck you very much too,” he said finally, his voice shaking a little. “Screw you, Alec.”

Grabbing his glass, he was turning to go—somewhere, anywhere, ready to fling himself upon the dubious mercies of all these strangers to get away from the guilt pounding like a heart in his chest—when Alec said, “It’s not me you want to screw though, is it?”

Simon snapped around, staring. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

“Oh, please,” Alec said. “You think you’re fooling anyone, with your fuck-me eyes and that blade at your hip like you’re proud of it? It’s not a _philia_ _armask_ _ō_ , Simon, did you think we’d all forget that?” He took a swig of whatever was in his glass.

Simon put his own drink down. “I think you need to stop drinking.” Somehow, his voice emerged even, calm, as if his heart wasn’t trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. “You’ve had enough.”

_If anyone hears him—_

“Who are you to tell me what I need?” Alec demanded. “Look at you—wearing those clothes like they make you a Shadowhunter, as if you have the first idea what that means! As if you have the _right_ after what you’ve done—”

“Oh right, because I asked for this!” Simon snapped back, fear overcome by fury, by the blinding _unfairness_ — “All I ever wanted was a genocidal maniac for a father, and my mom in a coma, and the incest—well, that’s just the icing on the cake, isn’t it?” He wanted to snarl, and fuck the party, fuck their audience, fuck all the damn secrets— “Who wouldn’t want to be attacked and tortured and have monsters gunning for their head—you unbelievable dick, you think I _wanted_ my family ripped apart, my life destroyed—you can keep your precious Shadow World, I don’t want one fucking piece of it!”

“Then why are you still here?” Alec asked, and it was a knife, a blade of ice sliding between Simon’s ribs. “Go, if you hate it so much. _Leave_. No one’s keeping you. No one _wants_ you here.” His mouth twisted. “Poor Simon, with his special powers and his gloried lineage, he has it _so hard_. Never mind that Jace was eight when he went on his first hunt, ten when he saw his father murdered. It’s Simon we should all feel sorry for, right?”

He drained his glass and smacked it down on the table. “By the Angel, you have no idea.”

“No idea of _what?”_ Simon demanded.

“What you’ve done,” Alec snarled. “Your family’s torn apart? What do you think you did to Jace’s? Before you showed up, he had parents, brothers, a sister. Now the Law says he’s an orphan. Do you understand _that?_ He has no more claim to the Wayland estates, and the Morgenstern fortune was seized after the Uprising, so he has no home and no holdings. He has _nothing,_ and it’s all because of you!”

The sheer idiocy of that almost knocked Simon back a step. “It isn’t my fault your Law is insane! Both our parents are alive—not that I wouldn’t love Valentine’s head on a stick, but, you know, _not an orphan_ —”

“Your father’s banished and your mother broke her oath to the Clave; they’re both dead to the Nephilim,” Alec snapped. “As if Jace would want to be claimed by them, a murderer and a coward—”

Simon laughed. He couldn’t help it; it was such a terrible reaction, but there it was, spilling smooth and dark from his throat. “Is that supposed to insult me?” he asked. “Should I challenge you to a duel for defaming my family honour? Are you fucking serious?” He put his drink down, carefully, deliberately. “You don’t have much of a leg to stand on. You think my mom’s a coward? At least she fought on the right side of the Uprising. What about yours? And your dad?” His shoulder muscles felt heavy, weighted down by a river of jet feathers as he took a step towards Alec.

“How many Shadowhunters do you think your parents murdered that day?” he purred, hearing his voice drop down into something velvety and low, almost intimate. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Alec.”

“Maybe,” Alec said after a beat. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Jace has nothing left to him.”

“He has a brother,” Simon answered. _He’ll always have me._

“He has _two_ ,” Alec snapped. “Max and I will always be his brothers, whatever the Law says. But you?” His smile was nearly a snarl, a baring of teeth that Simon’s darkness could appreciate. “I see how your eyes follow him, the way you watch him when you think no one watches you. You’re not his brother, Simon. You’re just sick.”

Simon thought of Jace’s face tipped back under the water, the shape his lips made as they parted, the warmth of his skin. _Too late_ , Symeon whispered, laughing, mocking, crowing. _You’ll never convince me this is wrong now._

The words rested on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out like dark gems in a twisted fairytale; _what do you care, is that jealousy sharpening your words, your weapons? Can you feel how much he wants me, craves me; can you read my name printed on his heart? It wouldn’t matter if he didn’t want me back, would it?_

He bit down on them, felt them burst between his teeth like pomegranate seeds and pepper. Symeon—his other self, whatever it was, angel or psychopathic genetics or or or—was so close to the surface that he was an echo behind Simon’s heartbeat, a silken weight rubbing up against the underside of Simon’s skin and looking to hurt, to wound, to slide a knife of words into Alec’s chest and twist it like a key until he opened up, fell apart, spilled garnets of pain-hurt-anguish across the floor and understood to _leave Simon alone_ ––

_I can see your faultlines like neon road-signs, your vulnerabilities like bulls’-eyes; how stupid not to hold your tongue when I can see just how bestworst to hurt you––_

Simon jolted out of that headspace and took a step back, very close to horrified at how close he’d come to saying something unforgivable, how easy it had been to see just which words would cut the deepest.

_I don’t want to be that person._

Alec was watching him closely. “They think it’s an angel inside you,” he said slowly. A statement flung like a stone. “But I don’t know why an angel would flinch from the mark of Heaven. Seems a little strange, doesn’t it?”

The whole world turned to ice.

_‘More like my kind than his.’_

It felt like eons before Simon remembered how to breathe, remembered all the reasons Alec’s theory could not be true. “You think I’m possessed by a demon instead?” he asked, finally finding his voice. It came out sharp. “Sure. Then how come I can touch a seraph blade? And bear runes? I’m going to take a wild guess and say that neither of those are possible for demons. And I’m sure seraph fire can be channeled through a demon no problem.”

Alec shrugged. “Who knows what a possessed Shadowhunter can and can’t do?” he said. “It’s never happened before.”

The sweat on the back of Simon’s neck was cold. “If that’s what you think, then fine,” he managed thickly. _Alec is Jace’s brother too––more than his brother––we shouldn’t be at each other’s throats like this._ “I clearly can’t change your mind, and I don’t want to fight with the person who saved my life.”

_Alec’s weight crashing into him, sending him to the floor––Izzy screaming Alec’s name––Alec hanging limp and bloody from Abbadon’s claws––_

He saw the memory in Alec’s eyes, too, before the other boy looked away. “I did that for Jace,” Alec said harshly. “Before I knew what you were.”

“So if you could do it over, you’d let me die.” It wasn’t a question. _What_ , not _who_ , as if Simon were one of the monsters the Nephilim hunted, a thing to be exterminated, and not a person. It burned. “Well, I’m still grateful. And for the record, if _I_ could go back, I’d do it just the same.”

Alec frowned. “Do what?”

“Save your life right back.”

*

Alec watched Simon walk away, the sour bite of guilt teething in his gut. Simon’s final words made him feel small and petty, but Alec was too self-aware to pretend that he didn’t deserve it.

Because Simon _had_ saved his life. After Abbadon, his runes had held back Alec’s death long enough for Magnus to reach him. If not for Simon’s efforts, Alec would have died long before the warlock even knew Alec was hurt.

 _If Simon hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been injured in the first place!_ He told himself. But he knew it didn’t matter, wasn’t the point.

Abbadon’s claws had not left an angel mark on him. But what he’d said was true: there had never been a possessed Shadowhunter before. Nephilim from other castes, yes, there were stories—but Shadowhunters weren’t like other Nephilim, down to their blood and bones. If there were a demon in Simon, there was no way to tell what abilities it might have, what it could and could not do.

Had those final words been Simon’s, or a demon’s, seeking to drive away Alec’s suspicions with guilt?

He cursed under his breath and rubbed at his head with his marked hand. These thoughts were tying his mind into a Gordian Knot, and he couldn’t see a way to smooth out the tangle. There had to be some test, some way to tell for sure what it was that made Simon so different…

“Did that help?” Magnus’ voice asked, tartly. “You’ve devastated that poor boy, no doubt.”

Alec turned. Magnus stood behind him, one eyebrow risen high. His arms were crossed over his chest.

“I didn’t mean to,” Alec said.

“Yes, you did.” There was a glint of something hard in Magnus’ gaze. “I think I even understand why. But he doesn’t deserve your hate.”

“How would you know?” Alec asked, stung.

“I’ve seen him every two years since he was a child,” Magnus said simply. “I’ve watched him grow up. He’s going to be a good man, if your world doesn’t break him.”

“And I’m not, is that it?” Alec shook his head. “Fine. Forget it. I should just go home—”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Magnus caught Alec’s shoulder before he could turn away. “You’re already a good man, Alec. The only person who doesn’t seem to know that is you.”

Alec stared at the hand on his shoulder, struck mute. The words all made perfect sense taken separately, but put together in that order they devolved into nonsense.

When Alec said nothing, Magnus let his hand fall. “Would you like to dance with me?” he asked, more quietly.

Despite himself Alec glanced towards the space out on the floor where Downworlders were dancing. His gaze was caught by one couple in particular, a vampire woman in a evening gown of shimmering blue silk, her palm touching that of a scruffy libaax faerie, her sleek dark hair at odds with his wild gold mane. There were amber beads tied into the tuft at the end of his tail, glittering as he flicked it back and forth. He and the vampire were both smiling.

“I…” Alec didn’t know what to say.

Magnus smiled. “It’s all right. Maybe another time.”

There was no condemnation in his voice; that in itself made Alec sick with shame to be so afraid. But even if Izzy and Simon somehow knew about him, Jace was here, and didn’t. To tell him—worse, to _show_ him…

 _He hasn’t been able to hide how he feels about Simon from you,_ a voice whispered. It sounded like Simon’s. _What makes you think you’ve been able to hide this from him?_

The sudden realisation—so deeply buried, so desperately unthought for so long—tore through him like Abbadon’s claws come again, piercing him through; a pain so immense it was cold, cold and white instead of hot and black. It was terrifying, like going blind or suddenly being granted sight; a terror like a pit yawning open beneath his feet, a terror like falling.

 _He knows. He’s probably always known._ _How could you ever believe he didn’t, your soul’s twin, your second heart?_

“Alec?” Magnus looked concerned. “It really doesn’t matter.”

 _You should have let Abbadon kill me._ The words sprang to his tongue unbidden; only the all-consuming panic kept them from slipping free.

He was going to laugh. Or he was going to scream.

Before he could do either, the song the band was playing changed. A murmur of appreciation ran through the gathered crowd as the dancers began moving a little faster, weaving a much more intricate pattern with their feet. They spun into a circle in eddies of silk and satin and there, framed at the centre like the heart of a flower, were Simon’s mundane friend and the youngest Seelie princess, clasped together as if one of them was a man.

Clary had her head tipped back, her hair streaking behind her like a banner. She was laughing.

“Alec? Are you all right? I am genuinely beginning to worry now.”

Laughing. Laughing, dancing arm in arm with another girl, and no one cared.

“I have to go,” Alec said suddenly. His ribcage pressed in against his heart; he could feel every beat of his pulse, pounding and pounding. “I need to talk to Jace.”

He could have done it standing here, could have had this conversation mind-to-mind without ever moving an inch. But as he pushed past Magnus, hardly seeing him, Alec felt the frantic urge to see Jace’s face, to meet his eyes as he heard what Alec had to say. What he had to ask.

*

“Do you know?”

Jace turned away from the view—it was a spectacularly terrible view, but Magnus still got some credit for managing a balcony in this neighbourhood—to look at his _parabatai_. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” he drawled.

Alec threw open the bond between them, and Jace had been leaning on the railing but now he jerked upright at the storm raging, lashing through his brother. Imagesthoughtsmemoriesemotions shrieked through them like wind-dragons with silver wings, and Jace grasped the railing, rocking back a little on his heels.

“Did you know,” Alec said, and the whites of his eyes were very bright, his gaze wild, “that I—that I’m—”

He took a deep breath. “That I’m gay?”

“Yes.” Was that all? Jace held himself still, because it was nothing to him but everything to Alec—he could feel it, taste it, the earthquake-tremors running through his _parabatai_ like echoes of a scream.

Alec’s breath hissed in, as if Jace had struck him. Something too bitter-salt-anguished flashed through the bond and was gone, buried deep where Jace would have to pry to find it again, but he could feel the bruise around it, hear it. The sound of tearing metal.

“Always?” Alec asked. His voice did not shake, but his soul trembled.

Jace shook his head. “When Simon came… I realised a lot of things. I suppose I…understood, finally, what I was feeling from you.” He exhaled, struggling to rein in the tide of conflicting-contrasting emotions that wanted to sear through him, through his link with Alec. It had never felt right, trying to hide things from his _parabatai_. Neither the nature of the bond nor the nature of their friendship were made to allow it.

Alec’s apprehension speared through him, a knife to the heart. “Is that why you’ve been hiding things?” Alec asked. His voice was defiant; his thoughts, fragile as spun glass.

“What? No, of course not.” Jace frowned. “Why would I have to hide what I think about your being gay?”

“If you didn’t—” Alec stopped. His soul was like snowfall, slow, heavy flakes drifting in the cold dark. “If you didn’t want to be _parabatai_ anymore.”

“Never think that,” Jace said sharply. He strode across to Alec and gripped his forearm tight, dragging him closer. “How could you ever think that? What have I ever done to make you wonder such a thing?”

Alec was the taller of them—had always been—but he felt smaller, now, small and delicate like something precious breaking.

“You’re my brother,” Jace said fiercely. “My _parabatai_. You’re _me_ , my soul in another skin, wearing another name. To lose you would be to lose myself.”

Secrets could be kept between _parabatai_ —just—but lies could not survive the bond. The truth rippled through them like fire on water, golden and clear and searing, leaving nowhere for Alec’s uncertainty to hide.

“If anyone wants to cut our bond,” Jace said, “they’ll have to kill me first. Doubt the sun, doubt the world, but don’t ever doubt that.”

The surge of relief tasted like grief, cut into Jace like a knife; it _hurt_ , bitter and terrible and freeing, freed, a crashing wave of salted sea sweeping across a thousand secret terrors and drowning them. Alec’s knees went weak, he hung his head and breathed and Jace felt the air move into his lungs as if they were his own, sharp and gasping with relief, relief, _relief_.

_*We-I thought we-you would hate we-I—was so certain-sure, the fear a poison, eating away at the heart-flesh for so so long—*_

_*Nevernevernever, how could that ever be, there is no world in which we-us are not one always and forever—*_

_*For true truth really? Or are you hiding still—*_ A stutter, a shudder in their thoughts as Alec suddenly drew back, not physically but from the merging of minds. _*—to spare we-me’s feelings?*_

 _*No…*_ Jace whispered. _*No, we-I would never, could never, how can you not understand—*_

And because Alec didn’t—couldn’t—Jace released his chokehold on their link and showed him.

If Alec was a storm, then Jace was a hurricane, a twister of emotions heartbreakingly sweet and heartrippingly anguished. Here was his love for Alec, unshakable, unalterable, a bridge of diamond tying two hearts together, an isthmus merging two separate souls into one whole and it would not be drowned, would not sink or break apart, could not be; _we are one, us-me and us-you two halves made one thing_ , sealed in fire and the Marks of the Angel for all time, _where thou diest will I die_ , the words they’d spoken to weave the binding and which Jace had _meant_ , meant and still meant with all he was, all he ever would be.

But here was what he’d hidden, then, writ in flame and tide for Alec to see-hear-know in an instant of shared thought; the confusion and desire and awe, the laughter, the terror, the guilt and shame and the love that threatened to stop his heart, so that he never knew if each beat might be his last; _I love him, I love him, by the Angel I swear I love him and I can’t make myself stop, I don’t know how (I don’t want to)._ The wretchedness of this night, not daring to let his eyes wander in Simon’s direction because surely everyone would _know_ , would see the light flare between them, simmering in molten ribbons of sunlight-starlight. The ache in his chest, lodged behind his heart and caught in his throat; surely it would blaze above his head if he but met Simon’s gaze; surely the beautiful, incredible firework display lighting up his soul could not be missed if anyone saw how he looked at Simon _(his brother but less his brother than Alec ever could be, ever will be, how can this be wrong when it feels like everything finally come right—)_

Jace pulled his hand and his mind away from Alec’s. “That,” he said lowly, “is what I’ve been hiding.”

Alec stared at him, blue eyes more familiar to Jace than his own reflection gone to dark glass, the mirrored surface of some deep lake. “You still love him.” Quietly spoken, as if keeping the universe from overhearing might prevent it being true.

Jace said nothing, did nothing. Just waited for the bullet of rejection.

Alec’s eyes flickered closed. “It’s not your fault,” he said emphatically. “You were—you didn’t know. It takes time to get over the feelings. That’s all it is.”

“You don’t believe that,” Jace said softly. A statement. There could be no outright lies between _parabatai_.

“He’s your brother.” There were no words for the tone in Alec’s voice; only those who had experienced the _parabatai_ bond would have understood Jace if he’d tried to describe it, explain it: the jagged harshness, the pleading note interwoven among the attempt at anger.

“It doesn’t seem to matter.” Jace looked away, out over the view. Distantly he could hear the sound of a late-night train, rumbling like a far-off dragon through the city streets.

“It’s supposed to matter!”

“It is,” Jace agreed. “But it doesn’t.” He risked a glance at Alec’s face. “Why are Simon and I worse than you and Magnus?”

“There _is_ no Magnus and I!” Alec hissed, not angry but afraid someone had overheard. He darted a look behind him, but the balcony doors were shut tight.

Jace didn’t dignify that bald a lie by arguing the point.

Alec took a deep breath. “Not yet,” he whispered, very softly. He shook his head. “Magnus and I don’t share blood, Jace.”

“We’re Shadowhunters. We all share blood.” Jace grinned. “Children of Raziel one and all, remember?”

“Are you _joking_ about this?!”

“I am honestly shocked you’re surprised.” But the amusement, so fragile, faded under the weight of Alec’s disbelief. “The Clave would hate a Shadowhunter and a warlock as much as two brothers together. At least Simon doesn’t have demon in him.”

“You _think,”_ Alec said sharply, and it was there in a flash, all of Alec’s suspicions and suppositions, downloaded straight to Jace’s hindbrain.

“I _know,”_ Jace said, not joking now, biting back a whiplash of temper at the thought, the idea— “I could never feel like this for a demon.”

“You _think,”_ Alec repeated stubbornly.

Jace threw up his hands. “Are you going to hate me or aren’t you?”

“Of course I’m not!” A blinding flash of righteous outrage, insulted honour; _*how could I never we are one soul sealed and done*_ , and Jace didn’t realise how afraid he’d been until there was no more need for fear. He still remembered, vaguely, what life without Simon had been like; he could not imagine living, breathing, _being_ without Alec. “I could never.”

Jace nodded slowly. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Don’t.” Alec looked past him. “It’s probably my fault anyway.”

Jace blinked. “You what now?”

“I told him to go after you.” Alec shrugged under Jace’s disbelief. Jace could feel his exhaustion, as if his _parabatai_ was wearing armour made of lead. “He came to see me in the infirmary. After—after. I told him you needed him in your life. Which was true.”

“Is true,” Jace said softly.

Alec glanced at him. “Is true,” he allowed, just as soft. Resignation, tired and tinted with milky misery, strummed through their link. “It’s going to end badly. You have to know that.”

“Probably.” Jace made his voice light, even as he added silently _*I don’t know how to give him up. I don’t know how to want to.*_

Alec was silent for a long time. Jace closed his eyes and focussed on the breeze, the wind tearing through the heavy, hot air. The touch of it against his skin reminded him that this was immediate and now, reminded him that the world outside of his head was still real.

 _*He fought for you when no one else could,*_ Alec said at last. _*I respect him. I’m even grateful to him, for Renwicks. He makes you happier than I’ve ever felt you. But this thing between the two of you—it’s going to get you killed. He can walk away from our world, Jace, but you have nowhere to go if the Clave cast you out.*_

Jace thought of Simon’s ruined apartment, thought of the hospital he still hadn’t entered, the mother he couldn’t remember. It would make for a poor exchange, the honour and glory of being their generation’s greatest Shadowhunter for a mundane life in Brooklyn, his Marks ripped away, the Sight burned from his eyes.

 _*I’d stay with him,*_ Jace answered. _*I’d meet my mother.*_

 _*If she wakes up,*_ Alec pointed out. _*And what would you do, if you even survived the transition? Go to school like a mundane? Become a merchant, a lawyer?*_

“A model, I think,” Jace grinned.

Alec didn’t smile. “You’d never see us again.”

Jace felt the smile fade from his lips. “It won’t happen.”

“I hope it won’t.” Alec sighed. “I’m just afraid that someday, you’re going to have to choose between him and yourself. And you’re going to choose wrong.”

“We’re Shadowhunters,” Jace whispered. “We always choose the other person. We always sacrifice ourselves. That’s what we’re for.”

Alec’s gaze sharpened. “Then you’d better hope they don’t give the choice to me. Because I have to choose between the two of you, Jace, I won’t hesitate.” He turned back and put his hand on the door. “Even if it makes you hate me, I’ll pick you every time.”

*

“Hey,” Jace said from behind him, “do you want to go?”

Simon did not jump, but only because he’d become inured to hours of random Downworlders pouncing to interrogate him about his backstory. “Oh, so you’re talking to me now?” he asked. His voice trembled, and he ignored it, hoping Jace would too as he turned to face his _aikane_.

As if there was any chance of that. One glance at Simon’s face, and Jace’s eyes widened minutely. “What’s wrong?” he asked, stepping in closer. “Did something happen?”

If Jace had been indifferent, or cool—if he hadn’t noticed anything was wrong, Simon could have kept up the charade. But tenderness was a needle that slipped through armour that would turn the sharpest sword, and beneath his mask Simon was too raw for gentleness, scraped to bleeding by Alec’s accusations. The needle found his heart and Simon’s throat tightened, suddenly burning, blinking past the salt in his eyes.

“No. Yes, I want to leave.” It was pathetic and childish and Simon didn’t give a damn; he wanted to be gone, and he wouldn’t have asked but if Jace was offering then Simon would grab the chance. “Now? Can we go now?”

Jace started to reach for Simon’s hand, but caught himself. Simon’s fingers almost ached. “I’ll just say thank you to Magnus. Okay? I’ll just be a minute.” He looked worried.

Simon tried to smile. “I’ll be right here.”

 _You’d better be,_ Jace’s eyes said, and then he was gone.

By the time he returned Simon no longer felt as though he might break into tears at any moment. The two of them left the party silently, without speaking to each other or anyone else. Simon looked for Clary they slipped away, but she was dancing with Olianthe and he couldn’t bear to ruin her evening. He would apologise to her tomorrow.

“Tell me,” Jace said, when they’d left Magnus’ building behind them, a pair of matching _mendelin_ runes for invisibility on their arms. “What’s wrong?”

Simon shook his head. “Nothing.” He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to pit Jace against Alec and start a fight when Alec probably hadn’t meant half of what he’d said _(he was drinking and hurting and who’s fair and calm under circumstances like that?)(maybe it was even fear, maybe he was scared of Simon)(why wouldn’t he be?)_ It wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth risking Jace and Alec’s friendship for some emo crap that would be forgotten by morning—

They were walking towards the subway. There was no one else around; no mundanes to hear them, no Shadow Worlders to potentially pierce their glamours. The light from the street lamps dappled the empty pavement in dirty gold and grimy shadows.

Jace stepped in front of Simon, forcing him to stop walking. “Don’t lie to me,” Jace said softly. In the dark his eyes seemed to burn, like amber, like flames. “We’re already lying to near-enough the entire Fallen-cursed world. If we start lying to each other, there won’t be any truth left to us.”

It cut deep, the awful, terrible honesty of what Jace was saying, the cold bare fact of it; and for a moment Simon couldn’t breathe through the crushing desolation of it, the realisation that it was true. In all the world, there was only one person left who knew the entire truth of him.

The crushing loneliness of tasted like despair.

“You’re right,” Simon said, when he could speak again. “I’m sorry.” It felt like a fist around his heart, bands of iron around his lungs; he wanted to sit down in the street and cry. His mom was too far gone to reach, he was lying to Clary, Luke had turned on him, Eric and the others couldn’t _begin_ to understand what his life had become; if he started lying to Jace, too, there would be no one left.

“Then what’s wrong?” Jace asked again.

Simon tried to marshal his thoughts. There were so many answers he could give to that question: Alec’s viciousness, the thought of being possessed, the fear of what Jace’s dedication might mean for them. But the one that bubbled up and spilled out, pathetic almost beyond bearing, was only, “You didn’t even look at me all night.”

Humiliation was instant and total: heat flooded Simon’s face. He couldn’t believe he’d said that. “I’m sorry, forget that I—”

“Simon,” Jace said softly, and Simon shut up, because in Jace’s mouth his name sounded like a prayer. “Do you know what you look like tonight?”

Simon blinked, and remembered the mirror at the Institute. “A Shadowhunter.”

“Yes,” Jace admitted, “but more than that.” His eyes closed briefly; Simon thought he saw his _aikane_ swallow. “You look like my husband.”

And Simon couldn’t breathe.

Jace’s eyes burned open, golden, gleaming. “Most Shadowhunters marry young,” he said. “If I’d been betrothed to an older girl, I might have gotten married today, right after my dedication. And there you were, wearing my ring, my family’s colours, Simiel at your side declaring you mine for everyone to see—as if all I had to do was walk down the aisle to you, and I’d be allowed to have you forever.”

He smiled, and it was a strange thing, sad and longing and adoring all at once. “So no, I couldn’t let myself look at you,” he said quietly. “If I had, everyone there would have known how I felt.” His hand rose to touch, lightly, the sigil of stars on Simon’s chest. “I’m not a good enough liar to see you dressed for a wedding and pretend it means nothing to me.”

It hurt, to hear this. It was more than Simon could bear, the piercing sweetness like a knife of honey and hemlock sheathing itself in his heart; he was breathing starlight, breathing fire, if someone had cut him now he would have bled glowing gold onto the pavement. When he curled his hand around the back of Jace’s neck to pull him close, brow to brow, his fingers trembled against Jace’s skin.

 _“Monons-ror,”_ he whispered. The Enochian endearment fell from his lips like an opal, bright and precious in the dark, and he felt Jace shiver at the sound of it.

“I never did ask you what that means,” Jace murmured. His nose brushed Simon’s, a playful gesture that wasn’t playful at all. His hand found Simon’s hip, warm through the _cóada_ ’s silk, and Simon realised that he could see Jace’s face more clearly suddenly, because Simiel was glowing, gleaming softly with a light like moonlight glimpsed through mist.

With the certainty of that light enclosing them in their own starlit world, the words came easy. “It means _sun of my heart,”_ Simon breathed against Jace’s mouth. “It means you’re my light. My warmth. My life.” His lips touched the corner of Jace’s, so lightly. “The star I orbit. My everything.”

Jace’s breath came fast against Simon’s mouth; Simon could taste it, the sharp-sweet bite of whatever Jace had been drinking in Magnus’ loft. His pulse raced against Simon’s palm, beating hard, hard, hard. “A very succinct language,” the blond said hoarsely. “To say so much with so few words.”

Simon smiled. “Yes,” he said simply. He took a step back, letting his hand slide from Jace’s neck down his arm, lacing their fingers together as Simiel’s light dimmed. “Do you want to come home with me tonight?”

And Jace said nothing, because the pressure of his fingers said it for him. _Yes._

*

Catarina watched the two Shadowhunter boys walk away down the street, hand in hand like children in a fairytale.

“You’re sure he’s not an _anunnaku?”_ she said finally.

Beside her, Magnus shook his head. “How could he be?” He stared out into the dark night as if he could still see the Morgenstern scions: maybe he could. She had never got around to asking if his eyes had the properties of a cat’s, and not just the appearance of them. “The Morgenstern and Fairchild seals both recognise him. Have you ever known one of those rings to make a mistake?”

“No,” she admitted.

Magnus made an elaborate hand gesture. “Two mortal parents. Case closed.”

“Case _open,”_ she corrected. “If he’s possessed and not sired, that’s _worse_ , Magnus! An _anunnaku_ could learn to control their powers; if he’s possessed, that monster controls _him_. It could take over and reduce this city to dust in an eyeblink, and none of us could stop it, least of all that boy!” She glanced at her friend’s impassive face. “You have to put him down.”

“I have to do no such thing.”

Now she stared. “Magnus, there are more than _eight million people_ in this city. And every one of them is at risk while he’s breathing.”

“It’s _my_ city,” Magnus said. “And my decision. I say he lives.” He saw her face. “Cat, I’m flattered that you think I can kill an angel’s host without its noticing, but you’re overestimating my skills. Right now, it has no reasonto do anyone any harm. We try to execute Simon, and that changes very quickly. Do you want to be responsible for provoking something like that? Because I don’t.”

“The Spiral Court will never accept this,” she said quietly.

“The Court can kiss my Jimmy Choos,” Magnus snapped. “If they want my _uru-zag_ , they can come and take it. While he’s in my territory, no one touches him. End of discussion.” He stepped back from the window. “It’s Alec I wanted you to see, anyway, not Simon.”

“Ah yes, the Lightwood heir. Another Shadowhunter you’ve become stupidly fond of.” Catarina smoothed a hand down her skirt, using the moment to plaster a semblance of calm over her saw-toothed unease. “What’s wrong with this one? Is he secretly an Eidolon, perhaps? No, wait—it’s demon pox, isn’t it? I seem to recall that it runs in that family.”

“One idiotic ancestor a trend does not make,” Magnus said with a roll of his eyes, once again his usual blithe self as he led her from the room. “Although I will grant that Benedict was particularly idiotic.”

“Benedict?” Alexander asked, overhearing the tail end of the conversation. He was standing in a corner by himself, nervously playing with the stem of his glass, and Catarina didn’t have to be a healer to know the fool was drunk. “I had an ancestor called Benedict.”

Catarina smiled sweetly. “Yes you did,” she cooed, ignoring Magnus’ sharp glance. “But you’re Alexander, aren’t you?” When he nodded, she continued. “I’m Catarina Loss. Magnus wants me to have a look at what’s wrong with you. Is that all right with you?”

Alec made a terrible sound, a kind of combination snort-laugh. “You can look all you want, it won’t help. There’s no magic that can fix what’s wrong with me.”

He was smiling as he said it, as if it were a great joke. That made it worse.

“Stop that,” she said when he went to finish his drink. “Give it to me.” Hiding the sudden sharp dart of sympathy beneath her customary brusqueness, she took the glass from his hand and pushed it at Magnus.

Who promptly drank it.

“That was mine!” Alec protested.

“I needed it,” Magnus said thickly.

Ignoring them both, Catarina placed her hand on the young Shadowhunter’s chest and cast a simple charm to break down the alcohol in his system.

A moment later, he was blinking at her, the fugged glaze gone from his eyes. “Um. Hello,” he said meekly.

She shot him an unimpressed look. “I’m going to ask you again,” she said, slowly and clearly, “because I don’t accept consent from the intoxicated. Do I have your permission to examine you?”

He nodded without a word, his gaze dropping down to the floor.

“Then let’s take this somewhere private.” She looked at Magnus and raised an eyebrow.

Her fellow warlock conjured a floating tray and set the glass on it. “I have a better idea. EVERYBODY GET OUT!”

The Lightwood boy flinched, but Catarina was too used to Magnus’ shenanigans to blink. “How about one of the spare rooms?” she asked Alexander.

“OUT! GO ON, I’M SICK OF LOOKING AT ALL OF YOU. SHOO. BEGONE.”

He looked after Magnus worriedly. “That sounds fine, I guess?”

“EVERYONE STILL HERE WHEN I COUNT TO TWENTY WILL BE SPENDING THE NIGHT AS A CHINCHILLA. ONE.”

“Chinchillas are wonderful animals.” Another Shadowhunter, this one a girl with the same colouring as Alexander, appeared at Catarina’s elbow in a flurry of red and gold silk. “They make lovely coats. Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine, Izzy,” Alec said hurriedly. “Magnus just decided he’d had enough.”

“TWO.”

“I can hear that,” Izzy said wryly. She looked Catarina up and down. “Isabelle Lightwood,” she introduced herself. “Alec’s sister.”

“Catarina Loss. A friend of Magnus’,” Catarina said stiffly.

“Miss Loss is going to see what Simon did,” Alec said quietly.

The soft uncertainty of his voice filled Catarina’s chest with spiky pufferfish. “Catarina _ashipu,”_ she snapped.

“Bless you,” Izzy said.

Catarina glared at her. “I did not sneeze,” she said coldly. “When you address a warlock, you follow their name with their proper title: _ashipu_. Magnus might put up with your rudeness, but I see no reason to.”

Alec put his hand on his sister’s arm before she could snarl. “We’re very sorry, Catarina _ashipu,”_ he said contritely. “We didn’t know. We’ll remember from now on.”

Catarina found herself staring at him again. She had dismissed his prettiness—Magnus almost always went for pretty, and after centuries of being his friend she’d had to resist a groan at the bright blue of Alexander’s eyes, the raven-wing sweep of his hair. Magnus was pathetically predictable, when all was said and done. So she had been unsurprised by the boy’s looks, all told—but unfeigned courtesy, from a Shadowhunter, was something she’d never seen before.

“FIVE.”

She came back to herself. “Yes, well. A spare room.”

The three of them clustered into the first of Magnus’ spare rooms, the blue one. With an effort of will, Catarina did not raise her eyebrows when she saw the unmade bed.

“Sit down, please,” she said briskly. Alexander sat on the bed; his sister stood by the door, watchful and wary. Catarina conjured a chair for herself and ignored her. “Tell me about your injury. Where does it hurt?”

Alexander hesitated. “It’s not—I don’t think it’s a physical wound.”

“I was dealing with psychic injuries long before you were born, Lightwood. Just tell me what it feels like.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and she didn’t think it was because she was a Downworlder. “Like something’s missing,” he said finally, very quietly. “Something really important.”

A faint chill skittered down Catarina’s spine, but she controlled herself. “Magnus told me what happened.” She touched her fingertips together, whispering words that were older than the Nephilim, drawing on her inner power. When she pulled her hands apart, the space between her palms shimmered like water. “Your friend Simon—Magnus thinks he’s possessed by an angel. He touched you, and…?”

She pretended not to see the way he looked over her shoulder at his sister.

“I don’t remember,” he said finally. “He—he kissed me, and then my memory goes blank. I just remember coming back to myself. The pain was—it was already there.”

“Hm.” She raised the gleaming screen between her hands in front of her face. “That can certainly happen. When—”

She had been a healer for almost eight hundred years. She did not drop her hands, or jerk back; her expression did not flicker.

But she could not honestly say that she had seen worse.

“—the aetheric body sustains an injury of sufficient severity, often the conscious mind erases the memory of the trauma. It helps prevent shock.” She continued without missing a beat. Her voice remained even despite the thick gorge rising up her throat, and the heaving of her stomach. Her hands did not shake.

It was beyond anything she had ever seen. What had been done to him—only centuries of practise kept her face impassive. There were no words strong enough to describe the savage, inhuman horror of what she was looking at, the brutal impossibility of it: how was he still breathing?

How was he _sane?_ He should have been screaming, gibbering, rocking in a corner or simply comatose, vegetative. Instead he sat still and quiet, perfectly rational, perfectly _aware_ …

To stay awake and sentient through that kind of pain… No wonder the boy had been drinking. Now that she knew what he’d been trying to escape, she felt guilty for sobering him up.

Carefully, Catarina brought her hands together, collapsing the spell. “I think I see the problem,” she said calmly. “I’ll have to research possible treatments.”

“You can’t fix it?” the Lightwood daughter said sharply.

“Not right away, no.” Catarina watched for Alexander’s reaction.

He did not look surprised, only exhausted. “Stop it, Izzy.” To Catarina, he said only, “Do you know what’s wrong with me?”

She chose her words with care. “Part of your aetheric body—your psychic energy—has been badly damaged.  Given time, it might heal on its own—most psychic injuries will, eventually. I will look for faster cures, but in the meantime, you should try and avoid drawing Marks as much as possible, and you and your family should watch for symptoms of depression. It’s a possible side-effect of this kind of injury.”

Alec nodded slowly, considering what she’d said. “Thank you for your help, Catarina _ashipu,”_ he said formally. “My family will not forget.”

She had not bowed to one of the Nephilim since before she walked the Spiral Labyrinth, but she bowed her head to Alexander Lightwood. “It was my honour, Shadowhunter.”

She rose from her chair and walked away from their startled faces. She turned right outside the bedroom and made her way down the hallway to the bathroom, where she locked the door behind her and cast a shield that would keep her from being overheard.

She barely made it to the toilet in time.

When Magnus found her, some ten or fifteen minutes later, there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up. She felt him gently unravel her locking charm and pass through her shield, but she didn’t lift her head to greet him; her eyes were closed, her head pillowed on her arms as she knelt next to the lavatory.

“I’ll never mock the Shadowhunters again,” she said thickly, “if even their children have such strength.”

She heard him kneel down next to her. There was a soft chime, and when she opened her eyes she found him proffering a glass of water. She took it, rinsed her mouth, and spat into the toilet.

“Something’s butchered his soul,” she told Magnus without looking at him. “It looks like… I don’t have the words, Magnus. Like it’s gone through Hell’s chop shop. He should have gone insane the moment it happened. He should be _dead.”_

“I’m very glad he’s not,” Magnus said quietly.

“I don’t know if he is. I don’t know if he will be.” She took some more water, and drank it this time. Her stomach roiled. “It’s never going to heal. Ever. Do you understand? Whatever did that to him cut out the core of what makes him human and cauterised the—the wound. I can’t fix it. I’ve never seen anything like it, because anyone who has that done to them just dies. Except your boy, apparently.” She held out her glass. “Vodka.”

“I’m not sure—”

_“Vodka.”_

The water didn’t seem to change, but the acidic scent of her chosen poison wafted up from the glass, and she tossed it back as if it were still H2O. “You have to be so gentle with him, Magnus,” she mumbled, when the cup was empty. “So gentle. He has to be gentle with _himself_. I don’t know if he’ll survive if he isn’t.” She stared at the glass. “I don’t know if he can survive at all,” she said brokenly.

She did not look up at Magnus’ face. She didn’t want to see what would be written in his eyes, in the stark lines of his lips. She could not unsee the ragged, gaping hole in Alexander’s psychic body, the blackness in his aura that spoke of vital pieces missing. She did not want Magnus’ pain imprinted on her memory too.

When she let herself slide sideways against his chest, his arms came up around her, and she heard the agonised hiss of his breath as he squeezed her tightly. But neither of them said a word.

*

When Catarina _ashipu_ left the room, she took the air with her: Alec couldn’t breathe, overwhelmed by the sense of reprieve, the crashing wave sweeping away his fears. The relief threatened to transmute to laughter in his throat, giddy and disbelieving: it was going to be all right. It could even heal on its own. He would not have to bear this wound forever.

His head fell forward into his hands, taking a moment to absorb Catarina’s reassurance. When Izzy came to sit down beside him, he reached for her hand without looking, without needing to.

She squeezed his fingers. “Pray with me?” she asked softly. When he nodded, she led him in one of the prayers of gratitude, whispering;

“We thank Raziel for this day, in this life, in this world. We thank Raziel for this light in the darkness, when hope seemed lost. We thank Raziel for lifting a burden from his child, that he may fight another day.”

It seemed strange to pray when it was, probably, an angel who had done this to him in the first place, but Alec murmured the words with his sister, heartfelt and genuine and so painfully grateful. It hurt, it still hurt, but just knowing that the pain would eventually stop gave him new strength to bear it.

It would end. It would end. He could wait, now, bolstered by that assurance, that promise.

“Do you want to head home?” Izzy asked finally, after a few minutes of silence. “Or should I go back by myself?”

Her words struck Alec like a bolt of lightning. His head whipped up, speechless not with relief but terrible, icy shock; but she only looked back at him calmly, her blue eyes—the mirror of his own—holding no condemnation. Only a little bit of amusement, underscored by the eyebrows she raised under his scrutiny.

“What? You think I didn’t notice how disappointed you were last week when we got the call about the Elapid? Or that you were all dressed up when I came to tell you about it? Please.” She pushed a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “And last night, too. So you know what I think?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I think that you were supposed to go on a date last week, but the Elapid ruined your plans. I think that you rescheduled for yesterday, but then—well, Jace needed us.” She made a _what can you do?_ gesture. “And I think that after so many interruptions, if you want some private time with your boyfriend, that’d be fine by me.”

Alec’s mind came to a shuddering stop, like a piece of broken clockwork; as if in opposition, his heart raced, his pulse beating against the inside of his skin like fists. Instinctive denials sprang to his lips, but he bit down on them; sick, and terrified, and refusing to lie. Not after he’d told Jace. Not when Izzy knew already, had known for so long _(somehow, how?)_ and never batted an eye.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” he said finally.

Isabelle grinned, and leaned over to ruffle his hair. “Think what you want, but I saw his outfit last night. I don’t think even Magnus Bane wears quite _that_ much sparkle for just anybody.” She rose gracefully to her feet. “I expect you back by breakfast, Mr Institute Head.”

By the time he recovered from what felt like a blow to the head, his sister was at the door. “We haven’t even been on a date yet!” he called after her, but she only waved a playful goodbye at him.

“Remember to use protection!” she trilled.

He snatched a pillow from the bed and hurled it after her. She ducked into the corridor before it could get her, and he heard her laugh.

Heard her call goodbye to Magnus, and the sound of the front door closing behind her.

It was very quiet, once she was gone. Distantly Alec remembered Magnus calling an end to the party, ordering everyone to leave, but Alec had been focussed on Catarina and not really paying attention to anything else. And also, possibly, a little bit, drunk.

He wasn’t drunk now, and he regretted it a little bit. The alcohol had smoothed out the sharp, spiky edges of his thoughts, had made it easier to just act instead of constantly double-thinking everything. He probably wouldn’t have confronted Jace if he’d been sober, for one. Definitely wouldn’t have said what he did to Simon.

He was going to have to apologise for that, the next time Alec saw him.

But Simon was not here now—Alec had felt Jace leave, had heard his _parabatai_ ’s goodbye in his head and known Simon was leaving with him—and Alec wasn’t sure what to do. It was more than a little bit tempting to just sit here, quietly, and do nothing. Without the alcoholic haze to numb it, without the distraction of Catarina’s examination or Izzy’s abrupt declarations, it was hard to ignore the pain, or the thick, heavy exhaustion that came with it. As if all his muscles had calcified into stone. Just the thought of getting up and moving was a Herculean labour.

 _It won’t last_ , he reminded himself. _She’ll find a treatment, or it will fix itself. She wasn’t surprised by what she saw. It’s not as bad as it feels._

He closed his eyes—then immediately opened them again, realising how easy it would be to fall asleep if he let himself. He should get up. Staying in here like a mouse was just pathetic. Everyone else was gone, nobody expected him to be politely social now. There was only Magnus, and maybe Catarina, if she hadn’t left yet. Being around Magnus was not exhausting, or hard. It was strange and electrifying and sometimes terrifying, but it was not an effort.

He got up, and went to look for the warlock.

The central living area was empty when he reached it, and Alec paused, uncertain. He glanced towards Magnus’ bedroom, but didn’t move towards it; he wasn’t sure that warlocks treated their private spaces the same way Shadowhunters did, but it still didn’t seem polite to go barging into someone else’s bedroom without permission. He would just wait for Magnus to come out, wherever he was. It wouldn’t be that long, probably.

He knew Alec was still here, right?

With nothing else to do—and afraid he would just pass out if he sat down again—Alec gathered up the used glasses and dirty plates and took them to the sink. By the time Magnus and Catarina appeared—the latter a much paler blue than when Alec had last seen her—there was a pile of clean dishes dripping themselves dry on the sideboard, and Alec was up to his elbows in the soapy water, his _cóada_ tossed over the back of a chair to protect it from the suds.

The warlocks both stopped in the doorway: Magnus looked shocked, but Catarina’s expression was simply blank. She stared at Alec for a moment, then turned to Magnus. “You spiked my drink, didn’t you,” she said flatly.

“It is true, I have been known to slip potions into my cocktails,” Magnus admitted shamelessly. “But this time I did not. I don’t think either of us are hallucinating.” He walked further into the room. “Alexander, what on earth are you doing?”

Embarrassed by their scrutiny, Alec dropped his gaze. “I was waiting for you,” he shrugged. “I figured I could at least do something useful while I was at it.”

Magnus shook his head incredulously. “You ridiculous Nephilim. Washing dishes is what magic is _for.”_

“I didn’t realise Shadowhunters knew how to wash dishes,” Catarina commented.

He’d messed up again, hadn’t he? Avoiding Magnus’ gaze, Alec took his hands out of the water, drying them nervously on his pants. “Sorry. I didn’t—I just thought—”

“I’m going now,” Catarina announced. Her entire demeanour was completely impassive, like some of the more ancient vampires Alec had met. “Goodbye, Magnus. Alexander.”

“Bye, Catarina _ashipu,”_ Alec said automatically.

Something strange flickered across the warlock’s azure face, like a crack darting through a breaking wall; for an instant Alec thought she might cry. But then it was gone, and he decided he’d imagined it.

“Thanks for your help,” Magnus said. “I’ll call you.”

Catarina let herself out without another word. She shut the door very gently behind her.

“Is she your friend?” Alec asked.

“Yes,” Magnus said, staring after her. “We have been for a very long time.” He blinked, and seemed to come back to himself. “I can’t believe you were doing my dishes.”

“I was trying to be helpful!” Alec protested, but Magnus was grinning, and he realised that the warlock wasn’t actually annoyed.

“Well, whatever you were trying to do, it was very sweet. But there’s no need for you to do my chores in future.” Magnus tilted his head. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “We talked about this a little before, do you remember? This,” he gestured between them, “isn’t a trade. You don’t have to do anything to earn—affection, or attention, or anything like that. You don’t have to be useful. You don’t have to kiss me, or anything else. You just have to be you. Okay?”

Alec’s cheeks were flaming, and he still couldn’t make himself look up at Magnus’ face. He nodded.

He jumped when Magnus’ hands were suddenly cradling his face, gently tilting his head up so his eyes naturally leapt to Magnus’ golden-green ones. “It really was sweet,” Magnus said, smiling. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to do anything here. It’s very important to me that you understand that.”

Alec nodded again. “I get it, really. I just—um.” He faltered. “I just wanted to do something nice for you,” he burst out. “Because, you know. We didn’t get to go out last night, and you threw this party for Jace, and all you got for it was a lot of mess. I thought… I thought the least I could do was help clean up.”

The feline pupils of Magnus’ eyes expanded slightly, then contracted again, molten onyx. “Thank you,” he said softly. He was smiling, but suddenly it looked terribly fragile. “That was a very lovely thing to do.”

Why did Magnus sound like he was trying to be polite to a stranger? His skin was so warm against Alec’s, driving away some of the awful cold in Alec’s heart.

“Are we boyfriends?” Alec asked, before he could stop himself.

Magnus looked bemused. He let his hand fall, and Alec had to stop himself from swaying after their touch. “I think so,” Magnus said. He sounded amused.

Alec’s stomach was a hydra nest. “Even though we haven’t been on a date yet?”

“I think so,” Magnus repeated. He was grinning now, and it didn’t look fragile at all, but solid and real. “I think, when you agree to date, that makes you boyfriends. Until somebody decides they don’t want to be anymore.”

Alec nodded slowly, absorbing this. “I want to be,” he blurted, his mouth gone dry. “Boyfriends, I mean.”

Magnus’ gaze softened. “Me too,” he said gently. Fondly, even, which—

Alec looked away from him, because it was hard enough to say this without seeing— _that_ —in Magnus’ face, the soft, golden emotion that punched Alec in the heart every time. “I told Jace that I’m gay. He knows about us, I think. Izzy—she definitely does.”

For a too-long minute, Magnus said nothing. “I haven’t told anyone,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think you’d want me to.” He paused. “Although Catarina knows, too.” Another pause. “You didn’t have to tell Jace anything.”

“I know,” Alec said quickly. “I just realised that—that he probably already knew. Which meant he didn’t care. I wasn’t sure, but I thought—” He stopped. “And I was right. He didn’t care.”

He had a much worse secret of his own, instead. But that wasn’t Magnus’ business.

“It was a brave thing to do, in any case,” Magnus said. Alec could feel the man’s gaze, a warm weight. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Alec thought about it for a second. “No,” he said finally. “I think it’s okay.” And it was. It was sort of horrible to know that people knew—not just suspected, but knew for sure. He was so used to keeping it a secret that part of him was afraid, now it was in the open—even if a very sheltered, particular open. But it was a stupid fear. Jace and Izzy weren’t going to tell anyone else, and they’d already proved it didn’t matter to them if he was gay. Eventually the fear would go away.

He looked back at Magnus. “I wasn’t really brave, though. Clary danced with Olianthe in front of everyone, and she’s just a mundane. I couldn’t—I don’t think I could do something like that.”

“Not that I think anyone is ‘just’ a mundane,” Magnus said dryly, “but Clary isn’t in the same situation as you. She’s not facing the same risks, or the same dangers—it’s different for her.”

He snapped his fingers, and the rest of the dirty plates vanished from the counter beside them.

“Although for the record,” Magnus continued, as if such acts of magic were nothing to get excited about, “I think it takes a great deal more courage to out yourself to your family than to strangers. Especially when you’ve been told your whole life that it’s wrong, which I suspect Clary’s parents never said to her.” He shrugged. “Being open in front of strangers isn’t easy, but I think your telling Jace must have been harder. Do you want anything to eat?”

The non-sequitur startled Alec; it took him a second to catch up. “No thanks, I—” _Don’t want to be a bother_.

Except that he _was_ hungry. He’d barely touched any of the finger food at the party; he’d been too busy trying to approximate a sober, fully-functioning Institute Head.

He hesitated.

Magnus turned away from him and started pulling things out of cupboards. Later, Alec would realise that Magnus had deliberately done things the mundane way—busying his hands and making a clatter when he could have summoned whatever he wanted just as easily—for Alec, to jolt him out of his thoughts. To make him focus on the practical minutiae instead of worrying about putting Magnus out. “I’m going to make a grilled cheese sandwich,” Magnus announced calmly. “I can as easily make two as one.”

Alec’s stomach cramped with a very non-lustful want. It was still difficult to force the words out. “That would be great.” Swallow past the dry mouth. “Thank you.”

“Thank me when they’re done and edible and haven’t given you rabbit ears,” Magnus said, and Alec could hear his grin. “You never know what kind of exotic ingredients could sneak into them. This _is_ a warlock’s kitchen.”

“You can’t be worse than Izzy,” Alec answered without thinking, and Magnus laughed.

“No? Pull up a chair and tell me about it,” he said, pouring oil onto the pan, and Alec sat down on the suddenly-conjured bar stool. He told Magnus about Isabelle’s infamous tuna muffins, and the time she’d managed to boil eggs that had cooked whites but liquid yolks, and Magnus kept laughing and Alec felt himself grinning, finally relaxing as he described the culinary explosions of ketchup and soy sauce, drawing pictures with his hands of the mess Izzy routinely made in the Institute kitchen. Magnus parried with stories of potions gone horribly wrong, when he was just learning how to use his magic; healing brews that gave his victims chicken feathers and invisibility elixirs that turned them orange—“bright, neon orange, absolutely hideous”—and it seemed like only moments before Alec was biting into the best grilled cheese sandwich he had _ever tasted_.

“By the _Angel_ , what did you do to this?” he demanded.

Magnus grinned. “It’s good?”

“It’s _amazing_.” But it was gone far too soon; Alec all but inhaled it, and then there was nothing but greasy crumbs left on his fingers, a smear of grilled mozzarella on his plate. “Where did you learn to cook like that?”

“You pick up a few things, over the centuries. Do you want another one?”

It was easier to say yes this time, with the memory of laughing together warm and loose and easy in Alec’s throat. He leaned his elbows on the counter as Magnus chopped more tomato for the sandwiches. Magnus handled the knife as easily as a Shadowhunter, his every movement graceful and economical, comfortable in this setting, at ease with Alec watching him. There was something incredibly relaxing about it.

“You know,” Magnus said after a while, when the sandwiches were sizzling on the pan, “the other reason it was easier for Clary tonight is that she knew she was safe. Olianthe is a Seelie princess; no one was going to hurt or insult her or anyone she danced with.”

A cold knot of discomfort squirmed in Alec’s gut. “Then I should have been able to do it too,” he pointed out. “You wouldn’t have let anyone hurt me either.”

“No,” Magnus agreed softly. “I wouldn’t have.”

Not that Alec needed Magnus to defend him—he was a Shadowhunter, born of one of the oldest Nephilim dynasties in the world; he could take care of himself. _(Or could he? One teenage Shadowhunter against a room full of enraged or disgusted Downworlders? If they’d all decided to erase the stain of him, could he have walked out alive?_

 _That’s never been his fear, though.)_ But it was still weirdly nice to hear. Heavy on the weird, but nice.

“That makes it worse,” Alec said. “I would have been safe, and I was still too much of a coward to try.”

“No,” Magnus said sharply. “There are different kinds of safe. You would have been physically safe—although how could you have known that, or trusted it?—but I couldn’t have stopped anyone from talking about it afterwards. I couldn’t promise it wouldn’t get back to the Nephilim eventually. And that’s a danger I can’t protect you from.” He turned the heat down on the stove. “I hope that someday you can do what you want, whenever you want to. I know I’d love to dance with you. But it’s not cowardly to keep yourself safe until that time comes.”

So why did it feel like cowardice? Intellectually, Alec could recognise the logic of Magnus’ arguments—but there was a voice in his head whispering that a mundane had done fearlessly what a Shadowhunter was too scared to. And it was hard not to be ashamed of that.

Magnus glanced at him. He put the new sandwiches on their plates, then stepped away from the counter. “Dance with me.”

“What?” Alec jerked upright on his stool. “Right—now? Here?”

“Yes.” Magnus held out his hand. “Right now. Right here.”

Alec looked down at the outstretched fingers. Maybe in solidarity with his Shadowhunter guests, Magnus had worn a sapphire blue _sherwani_ for the party tonight, covered in pink and gold embroidery, and his rings matched: moonstones and tourmalines and chunks of blue topaz, with a single pink opal glittering on his forefinger.

“There’s no music,” Alec protested weakly.

With his other hand, Magnus made a sharp gesture; he might have whispered a word beneath his breath, too low for Alec to catch. Instantly the sweet, languid strains of a ductia melody began playing from the stereo in the corner.

“I made sure I had the songs on a disc, in case something happened to the band,” Magnus explained in response to Alec’s disbelief. “You’ve no excuses now.”

Alec couldn’t think of any either. And…what was there to be afraid of? No one else was here. Nobody would see.

He could dance with his boyfriend if he wanted to.

“All right.” He took Magnus’ hand firmly and got to his feet. “Do you know this one?”

Magnus snorted. “Please. I was dancing this before your grandfather was born.”

“Well then, old man,” Alec said, and smirked at Magnus’ playful outrage, “let’s see if you can keep up with me.”

*

They filled the room with candles.

“I’m not a girl, Simon,” Jace said when Simon pulled the box from under the kitchen sink.

“What, so romance is only for girls now?” Simon asked. “That doesn’t seem very fair.” When Jace opened his mouth to protest again, Simon placed a finger on his lips.

Jace inhaled sharply, and Simon smiled.

“I want to see you,” he murmured. “Will you let me?”

Jace’s pupils were dilated, drinking him in. “When you put it like that,” he said huskily. “Carry on.”

He helped, showing Simon the fire rune— _eld_ , a sharp ripple of electric notes in Simon’s head, a spiralling curlicue etched into the candles with his stele—and carefully placing the lit candles around the room. They went on the windowsill, the bedside table, the mantelpiece above the blocked-off fireplace, and in the grate; on the chest of drawers and the shelves and, placed prudently out of the way against the walls, on the floor. By the time there were no more candles in the box the room was awash with brilliance, dozens of golden points of light shining like jewels, like tiny stars, turning everything into shadows and amber.

Turning the familiar sanctuary of Simon’s bedroom into something secret, and magical, and theirs alone.

Jace turned to him. The shadows played over his face, teased at his body; his eyes mirrored the candle flames, reflecting the fire back at Simon.

 _“Adgmachyi,”_ Simon whispered, hoarse and low; _glorious-beautiful_ , and Jace shivered, and reached for him, and everything else fell away.

*

Alec had grown up seeing mundanes dance in the hunting grounds of demons; the nightclubs and bars and discotheques, where the music drowned out speech and everyone seemed to be trying to have sex with their clothes on.

Shadowhunter dancing was not like that.

As they moved to the centre of the room the clasp of their hands loosened; by the time the song came around to the right part again, only their fingertips touched, so lightly that the merest twitch would part them.

The moment came, and they moved, circling like winds, like wolves. Their free arms they held behind them, horizontal across their lower backs, and Alec did not look at the floor or their surroundings but at Magnus’ eyes, the breath-taking green and gold of them, the beautiful cat-slit pupils. They did not make him think of demons, of tainted blood and the stink of sulphur. They were not a demon’s eyes; they belonged only to Magnus.

Thirteen steps deasil, precise and measured, for the thirteen moons of the year; one-two, one-two, carried along by the strains of flute and viola that started slow and gradually came faster, tugging the beat of your heart with it. Magnus was smiling and Alec wondered if he could feel Alec’s pulse where their fingertips touched, a hot electric throb. It was the _only_ place they touched, and it charged the rigid space between them, that tiny bit of contact, of warmth, grounding him and anchoring him. A thousand new nerve endings grew into his hand, straining for that light contact, resisting the desire for it.

*

It was so quiet, and so loud; the rapid snatched breaths between kisses, Jace’s heartbeat pounding under Simon’s hand, the rustle of their clothes coming off. It was not elegant, not graceful and easy like a movie montage—it was never like that; there were buttons that refused to slip free and boots to scramble off, the soft huff of frustrated laughter when trousers soft as cashmere refused to cooperate quickly enough.

But under it there was fire, around them there was flame; the flickering points of light seemed to multiply with every kiss and Simon was burning, he was alight, his hand fisted in Jace’s hair and Jace groaning into his mouth, clutching at him, hungrily seeking skin beneath the last remnants of their clothes.

And eventually the beautiful _cóadas_ lay discarded on the floor like shed skins of silk and crystal, and Simon pushed Jace back onto the bed.

*

Then the last broken one-two, the thirteenth step, and Alec and Magnus snapped apart, spinning away from each other; three steps back and the arms swinging up, braced, a stylised martial move meant to be performed with a blunt knife in hand. Then swing back, hand finding hand and circling widdershins this time, predatory and aware. There were no separate roles for men and women here because all Shadowhunters were warriors, and had been even for those centuries when women were forbidden to fight. This was a dance for hunters, for slayers of monsters, and now Idrian drums joined the other instruments, the rapid percussion mimicking a heartbeat, a pulse. Step and step and Alec could dance the ductia in his sleep but it had never been like this, this frenetic awareness of his partner’s body, the proximity like torture; Magnus’ fingertips were silken and Alec’s were coarse, callused, they kept catching slightly on Magnus’ skin and the whisper of friction echoed in Alec’s bones, down his spine.

*

Jace fell like an angel _(like the Morning Star, a Morgenstern)_ , and there on the sheets he looked like one, looked like something born from the fire. The candlelight licked over his hair, his honey-gold skin, caught in his eyes and turned them to flames; he was so beautiful that looking at him hurt, a sharp, terrible ache under Simon’s breastbone.

It was an instant, a moment, and then Simon was following him down and Jace arched up to meet him, pulling Simon’s lips to his and all the candleflames wavered at once as if a draught had passed through the room, though the air was still. Simon hardly noticed, had no room in him for anything but Jace, the smooth skin and the scars and the Marks thrumming faintly against his fingertips when he touched them, an ebony symphony written over Jace’s body in magic and _adamas_. He broke away from Jace’s mouth to taste them, tracing an _azo_ rune with his tongue and hearing its song in his head, not nearly loud enough to drown out Jace’s rough panting, not enough to distract from the aborted jerking of Jace’s hips against his, Jace’s cock leaving wet smears on Simon’s stomach—

 _“Simon,”_ Jace gasped, a curve pouring down his spine as Simon bit at Jace’s abdomen, “Simon, _Simon,”_ and his voice had ashes in it, dark and roughened, his fingers tangling in Simon’s hair and Simon nuzzled at the biteable sweep of Jace’s hipbone.

 _“Adgmachyi,”_ he murmured again, because English was too small and weak to capture this feeling, the awe and the desire, the hunger and the adoration. _“Oiad, geh a virudil—”_

_God, you are so beautiful—_

Jace shuddered, and a low, desperate sound caught in his throat; he arched, gasping, but it wasn’t enough, he hadn’t earned it, and Simon shoved hard at Jace’s hips, pinning him down with impossible ease. _“Ipé cor,”_ he purred, smirking; _not yet_ , and it must have been self-evident enough because Jace whimpered, and Simon reached for the lube.

*

Faster, step and step and break apart, whirl and clap and slide back together. Deasil again, and there were more drums, a tambourine, the more refined instruments fading away under the hard, pounding beat and they weren’t close enough, they were not close enough, there could have been a crowd watching their every move and Alec would never have noticed. Step and step and step, full moons flashing behind his eyes and he wanted to grab Magnus’ hand, fully, tightly, feel the press of warm skin against his. It was maddening and arousing and he could hear nothing over the drums, step and step and Magnus so close, so beautiful and Alec not allowed to touch more than this tiny bit—

Heel-toe, snapping his feet against the floor to make the soles click against the wooden boards, and on the thirteenth step spinning apart, clapping his upraised hands and whirling back together, turning the other way, faster, faster, every movement precise and controlled with the blood roaring through his veins, burning through his fingertips as if he could bleed through to Magnus if he just tried hard enough…

*

The foil tore between his teeth and Jace parted his legs like a good boy, panting hard, his eyes bronze-dark as he watched Simon slick his fingers. Simon kissed Jace’s thigh and could feel a weight dragging at his shoulders, heavy and feathered; could feel the air crackling like a storm about to break as he gently swept his fingers down the crease of Jace’s ass.

“Tell me if you’re not sure,” he said quietly, forcing the words into English because it was important, vitally important, that Jace understand perfectly—

“I _am_ sure, Fallen curse it,” Jace hissed, pushing up against Simon’s hold; his left hand still held Jace pinned. “Do it _now_ —”

His voice broke as Simon obeyed, pushing a single finger into Jace, sweet and slow. Simon purred and Jace was panting again, his chest heaving, all but vibrating as Simon carefully opened him up, stroking into him over and over. One finger became two, and then three and Jace was flexing his hips and Simon let him, kissing his thighs, his pelvis; _“Vridu,”_ he whispered; _beautified-perfected, “nenni ozien madriiax, ozien ascha—”_

_You are my heaven, my God—_

Jace’s shuddering whimper jolted down Simon’s spine like a firework, exploding into a burning rainbow of heat in the pit of his stomach. Simon curved his fingers in reward and the whimper broke into a cry, only Simon’s other hand keeping him from levitating off the bed. The sight sent his mortal tongue up in flames; all Simon’s thoughts became blinding light, he couldn’t remember how to think in English, could only find words of blood and seraphfire when he watched Jace tremble and writhe, as he listened to Jace call his name over and over, demanding, begging—

“Simon _please—please_ , by the Angel, _Simon—”_

Simon _snarled_ , the fire in his head gone abruptly black and white; he slid his fingers free and lunged upwards, falling on Jace like a snow leopard on its prey, catching his mouth and taking it, devouring it. Jace groaned and kissed back, heedless of the danger or maybe loving it, needing it; his legs wrapped around Simon’s waist to pull him closer still and the viciousness dulled a little, the snarl in Simon’s throat melting into a possessive purr.

 _“Ozien,”_ he breathed, nuzzling at Jace’s mouth, _mine, my own_ , and Jace’s nails found the marks they’d left that morning and Simon’s hips snapped, the dart of sweet pain streaking down his back—

*

Thirteen steps became nine, then seven, five, four, the circles growing tighter and tighter, smaller and smaller until the space between their bodies was as wide as that between their hands—

*

 _“_ _Agé,”_ Simon said, _no_ , and as easily as flexing a muscle he grabbed the runes on Jace’s arms and _shoved_ , pinning Jace’s wrists above his head as surely as any chain.

Jace’s spine curved like a bow, shocked lust sweeping across his face; the sound that came from his lips was wordless, nameless, equal parts stunned and hungry. Simon felt him pull against the hold but it was nothing to keep him down, it was _easy_ , he’d practiced this a hundred times in his nightmares—

“Simon, what—what—seraphs, by the _Angel—”_ Jace’s voice broke again, his eyes rolling back in his head as Simon stroked his cheek. “I can’t—”

“No,” Simon agreed, shaping the words with care because English was hard, just now, hard and far away. “You can’t.” He cradled Jace’s face, nuzzling him. “Do you want me to let you go?”

Jace squeezed his eyes shut, breathing hard. He was trembling slightly, his cock an aching heat against Simon’s thigh. His arms flexed, but his Marks hummed to Simon’s song and did not move.

“…No,” Jace whispered, and Simon smirked.

“Good boy,” he purred, and Jace shuddered, laid out and helpless and they both knew it. Simon kissed him hard, licking into his mouth and swallowing his moans, stroking his hand down Jace’s side as the blond arched into him, rocking his hips desperately against Simon’s and it was so good, _so good._

But Simon forced himself to pull away, even as the sound of protest Jace made threatened to make him come then and there. “Do you know what _ozien_ means, Jace?” Simon asked. He found the last of the lube and stroked it over his own cock, forcing himself to be thorough when he wanted so badly to rush.

Jace was staring at Simon’s fist, his pupils blown beyond repair. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely.

“It means _mine,”_ Simon said, and he fell against Jace’s lips once more, meeting Jace’s desperation with his own and lining up their hips, helping Jace hook his legs over Simon’s shoulders and there, now, oh Gods sliding in and Jace, Jace, _Jace_.

*

And the music stopped, the crescendo cut off as suddenly as the fall of guillotine, leaving the two men only inches apart. The ductia had not left Alec panting for years but now he was breathing hard, his hairline damp with sweat and his eyes locked with Magnus’. They were so close Alec could feel the heat of the warlock’s body, his breath on Alec’s lips.

It was unbearable.

The moment shattered like glass; Alec surged forward and Magnus was there to meet him, mouth to mouth with all the drum-beat hunger, the dance still pounding in their veins. Alec found his hand in Magnus’ incredible hair and his arm around the older man’s waist, pulling him in, needing to feel him pressed against his body, and it was a torturous relief, made the craving worse. He parted his lips for Magnus’ tongue and heard himself moan as Magnus accepted the invitation, sliding in smooth and warm, wet, and Magnus’ hands running over his chest, over his thin shirt as if he wanted to memorise every inch of Alec—

They broke to breathe and then Magnus was cupping Alec’s face, was kissing him again and again and it was impossible, incredible, the hungry pressure of lips on lips and Alec was starving. He moved from Magnus’ mouth to his jaw, remembering how good that had felt when Magnus did it to him; hummingbirds of fire beat in his stomach at the startled, pleased sound Magnus made, and he kept going, delighted and in awe that he could do this, could make Magnus feel this. He scraped his teeth over Magnus’ throat and Magnus’ fingers found the hem of Alec’s shirt and Alec bit down by mistake, shocked by how good it felt, the simple heat of Magnus’ soft hands on his abdomen—

Magnus groaned at the bite, and it felt like a prize, like winning a war.

Alec did it again, gently, tentatively, and his knees went weak when Magnus tilted his head to bare his throat, unmistakably encouraging. So he did it again, harder, and Magnus moaned, tangling one hand in Alec’s hair and urging him on, pressing Alec’s face into his neck and they were both panting, Alec was going to explode, break apart, by the Angel Magnus was _amazing_ —

And then Magnus suddenly pulled back, out of Alec’s grasp. It was like falling through ice into the lake beneath; Alec froze, whipping his hands away, sure that he’d done something wrong but with no idea what it was—

Magnus saw his face, and instantly his hands cupped Alec’s jaw. “Alec, no, you didn’t—I just had to stop, okay?”

“Did I do something?” Alec felt sick. “I’m—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” Magnus said fiercely. His lips were swollen; Alec wanted to lick them, and was horrified at himself. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Alec. The exact opposite, actually.”

Alec stared at him, confused.

Magnus kissed him again, lightly, softly. When he pulled away to speak, Alec swayed a little after his lips.

“I really want to keep going,” Magnus said. “But if we do, I’m worried I won’t be able to stop at all. I want you. But I don’t want our first time to be on the floor.”

“Oh. Oh!” Alec resisted the urge to slap his forehead. Could he sound any stupider if he tried? “Right. Yes. Okay. The floor probably wouldn’t be very comfortable.”

“No,” Magnus agreed, his eyes glittering. “A bed would probably be better. And a few dates first wouldn’t hurt either.”

Alec nodded. When he licked his own lips, Magnus’ gaze dropped to his mouth, and the jolt of _power_ Alec felt was almost alarming.

But mostly just kind of amazing.

“I guess I should go home,” he said softly, struggling not to think about the bedroom just a few feet away.

“That would be best,” Magnus said. His voice sounded a little hoarse.

Alec found himself grinning, and after a beat, Magnus grinned back at him, shining and bright.

It wasn’t such a bad end to the evening.

*

Slowly, so slowly, Simon pushed in, watching Jace’s face for any hint that he had to stop, pausing after every inch. It was supposed to be hard to wait, supposed to be torture, but it wasn’t, it _wasn’t_ , it was the easiest thing in the _world_ when the alternative was hurting his _aikane_ , his Jace, his perfect beautiful _Jace—_

Who was breathing hard, short hard gasps and his fingers flexing above his frozen wrists, trembling like something fragile, something breakable. But he pushed his hips up, not just eager but demanding and Simon didn’t know how to last, how to bear it, how to hold on as Jace’s body took him in, bit by bit, unbelievably tight and hot and none of it hitting him as hard as whose body it was—

And then he was in all the way. He stopped moving, waiting for Jace to adjust; he cupped Jace’s face and kissed him, soft, butterfly kisses over Jace’s brow and cheeks and the corner of his lips, patient and soothing and adoring. Jace’s erection was unflaggingly hard still, held between their bodies, and Simon reached down one-handed to wrap his fingers around it.

Jace shuddered. “Simon,” he murmured, as if that were all he could say; he sounded drunk, drugged. His cock twitched in Simon’s hand.

 _“Monons-ror,”_ Simon whispered in answer. He ran his tongue over Jace’s lower lip.

Jace whimpered. His lips parted and Simon kissed him instantly, deeply, stroking his tongue into Jace’s mouth and drinking in Jace’s moan.

Jace’s hips moved, and then again, and when the kiss ended Jace hissed at him, _“Move,_ damn you,” and Simon smirked.

He moved.

Gently, at first, slowly; Jace had not done this before, did not know what he could take and what he couldn’t. But Simon ought to have known, because this was Jace, who had never listened to reason and would have what he wanted even if it destroyed him _(although this wouldn’t, never, Simon would end himself first)_. He thrust back against Simon, panting, hissing, swearing at Simon to go faster, harder, until Simon kissed him again to silence him. It wasn’t a fight, wasn’t war; it was the two of them beyond bliss and Simon could hardly take it, Jace twisting and then writhing under him, moaning as the thrusts grew harder, deeper, his arms pinned and he had to take it, whatever Simon gave him, only take it and demand more—

And Simon would not go faster, no matter how Jace swore at him, a snarling fire-demon carved out in gold, an incubus caught and pinned on Simon’s bed. He went slowly and watched Jace’s face, watched his frustration dissolve into disbelief, into craving, need, _pleading_ as Simon rolled his hips steadily and kissed Enochian endearments into Jace’s jaw, his throat, whispered them into his hair, each one wringing shivering whimpers from his lover, making his hips buck helplessly.

“Simon, please, please, _please_ —”

 _“Vridu,”_ Simon whispered; _beautified-perfected, “nenni ozien madriiax, ozien ascha—”_

_You are my heaven, my God—_

Jace writhed, his breath coming in choked sobs. His fingers were twisted into claws. _“Simon!”_ he begged, and he was beautiful, he was _Simon’s_ , oh God Simon couldn’t, he couldn’t hold back one second longer—

He snapped in hard, almost snarling, and Jace cried out, arching off the bed. It was impossible, nothing could feel this good, this safe, this _right_ , every time with Jace was like dying and being remade and the shadows on the walls moved like two wings outlined by the flames—

 _“Monons-ror,”_ Simon gasped, kissing Jace through the moans and the clenched-teethed almost-screams and the desperate thrusting, moving together like they’d die if they didn’t, _“Ozien iabes—”_

_Sun-of-my-heart, my reason-for-being—_

Jace whimpered as if he understood, as if he could no more bear it than Simon could, too good and too much and undone, shaking under Simon’s stroking hands, gasping for his mouth and Simon’s heart was breaking for the love in it, breaking open—

Jace ripped at Simon’s hold and Simon let him go, felt Jace’s arms snap up around him as Jace came, biting down on Simon’s shoulder to muffle his cries. Simon snarled at the sudden pain, and it sent him over like a lightning bolt, like falling, falling endlessly into the one he loved more than _anything—_

 _“_ _Ol boaluahe gi,”_ he gasped, shaking, shaking _apart_ , pressing the words against Jace’s lips desperately, _“Ol boaluahe gi, zirdo imva—”_

They clung to each other, unable not to, sweat and stickiness be damned. There was salt in Simon’s eyes and he blinked it away, kissing Jace softly, again and again; slow, light, easy kisses, for all his heart felt too full and too open, both at once.

Jace kissed him back, gently. They stroked each other because they had to, could not bear to stop touching, both of them panting hard as Simon slipped out. He helped Jace lower his legs, rubbing the blond’s thighs when he winced.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Simply, easily, softly. He was carding his fingers through Simon’s hair. “By the Angel, Simon, I loved it.” His eyes were still dark as he raised a single eyebrow, and Simon wanted to laugh; only Jace could have looked so utterly self-possessed while freshly fucked. “Or couldn’t you tell?”

“I might have had an idea,” Simon said, trying not to grin. He kissed Jace’s lower lip. “You were… That was…”

“Amazing?” Jace suggested. “Wonderful? Incomparable?”

Simon laughed. “All of those.” His expression softened. “Thank you.”

“You’re most welcome,” Jace drawled, his signature smirk back on his lips. There was no trace, now, of the shattered, begging creature Simon had had in his arms just moments ago. The mask was firmly back in place, but Simon didn’t mind. It made it better, somehow, knowing that he was the only one who got to see Jace come completely undone.

Simon climbed off the blond and curled up next to him, stroking his palm back and forth over Jace’s side. They would have to go shower in a minute, he knew—thank the Elder Scrolls that the water was still running in the apartment, but maybe Luke just hadn’t got around to canceling the automatic bill payments yet. But for a while they could just lie here, and Simon could have the chance to accept that that really had just happened.

His body was all but singing with the afterglow.

“Simon?” Jace asked suddenly.

“Mm?” Simon had closed his eyes. It wouldn’t be so bad if he drifted off for a while, right?

Jace didn’t answer right away. “What did you say, right at the end?” he asked quietly.

And just like that, Simon was wide awake.

“You looked like…” Jace’s voice trailed off. “I thought you might cry.”

Simon swallowed. _“Zirdo imva_ means _I’m yours,”_ he said after a beat.

“And the other part?”

It was not a big deal. Or, it _was_ , but—but it wasn’t, too. It wasn’t a surprise. Jace already _knew_.

 _“Ol boaluahe gi,”_ Simon said softly, “means _I love you.”_

He felt Jace go still beside him. And why not? They had never said it. Not aloud. Until now, Simon had tried hard not to even think the words, as if it might be tempting fate somehow, as if they could work like a spell to cure Jace of his madness, make him realise he was making a mistake.

None of that made the words any less true. None of that changed how Simon felt, how he _knew_ he felt. It was stupid and impossible—it was sheer, unabashed _madness_ —but it was still true. Simon tried not to think about how this might end, tried not to consider all the forces stacked against them, but none of it mattered. None of it could undo the choice he’d made, if it had ever been a choice at all.

“You don’t have to say it back—” Simon started.

_“Ol boaluahe gi.”_

Simon’s eyes flew open. Jace was looking right at him, utterly serene.

“What?” he asked.

Simon opened his mouth. Closed it. “Your pronunciation is terrible,” he said finally.

Laughter shone in Jace’s eyes, but he kept his face impassive. “Is that so?” he asked, shifting closer. “Then I guess you’ll just have to teach me how to say it correctly.”

Simon closed his eyes. Now, he thought he might cry. How could one heart hold this and not break? “I can do that,” he said softly.

He felt Jace’s hand cup his cheek, and then lightly, gently, Jace’s lips found his again. And Simon never wanted to open his eyes.

* * *

 

NOTES

 

The Yazīdī are a religious sect who believe themselves to be descended from Adam, but not Eve—because both Adam and Eve put their ‘seed’ in a jar to see whose matter could bear fruit/would bear fruit. The stuff in Eve’s jar turned into ‘insects and vermin’, whereas in Adam’s jar it became a ‘beautiful boy child’, from whom the Yazīdī are descended.

Cranes (as in the one on Olianthe’s dress) symbolize happiness, eternal youth/immortality, loyalty and fidelity/successful marriage.

Orcus is a Roman god of Hell, but the name is also used interchangeably to refer to a deep, possibly bottomless pit in Hell (much the way that the word Hades can refer to the god or the underworld realm).

 _Philia armask_ _ō_ —an _armask_ _ō_ blade given by one family member to another; usually sibling to sibling, or parent to child. As opposed to the typical _armask_ _ō_ blade, which is a gift given between lovers.

 _Uru-zag_ ––Sumerian word meaning territory or kingdom.

An Elapid demon is one of those referenced in canon, with insectoid bodies and snake heads. Sebastian, Jace and Clary fight some in CoLS.

The ductia is a medieval dance. My understanding is that modern historians know almost nothing about medieval dances and any ‘recreated’ today are mostly made up from images in paintings and things. Same goes for the music, apart from one or two pieces that survived. So I just did what I wanted with it!

Deasil is an old word meaning clockwise, as in a clockwise direction.


	8. Interlude: Alicorn

As the party came to a close—which phrase, so polite, didn’t _quite_ capture the loud hilarity of Magnus threatening everyone who didn’t get their butts out the door fast enough—Clary looked around for Simon, but couldn’t spot him.

“Can you see Simon?” she asked Olianthe. The faerie princess was a good foot taller than her.

Her arm hooked through Clary’s, Olianthe turned her head, the blue-green-gold of her eyes shimmering like oil when they caught the light. “No,” she said after a moment. “He is not here.”

Clary rolled her eyes. “Of course he isn’t,” she muttered, but she wasn’t too annoyed. Even if it meant that Simon probably wasn’t coming home tonight. He’d amply proven that he could handle anything New York’s nightside might throw at him; there was no real reason to worry about him.

She did wonder when exactly he planned on telling her that he was still in love with his brother, though.

The two girls—could you call a faerie a girl, when Olianthe could easily be older than the city Clary lived in?—left Magnus’ loft without another word. The stairs were packed tight with all the guests leaving, but outside everyone dispersed; the vampires to their motorcycles (hopefully none of the Shadowhunters had tampered with them this time), and the faeries in all directions. More than one simply raised their arms and transformed, in melting streams of colour, into birds; owls and ravens and streamlined hawks with bronze eyes, all of them disappearing into the sky in a flutter of feathered wings. Others laid their hands on the dry, unhappy-looking moss on the wall of Magnus’ building, and disappeared in flashes of emerald-green.

Clary kept her face impassive, but it took some doing.

When the street was empty of everyone but them, Olianthe looked down at her. Her expression was a question.

“I don’t really want to go home,” Clary said, in answer. Not alone, without Simon; not yet. It was late, but her mom thought she was at one of Simon’s performances and didn’t expect her back until the early morning.

“I must confess myself glad to hear it,” Olianthe said. “It would have been almost unbearably disappointing to lose your company so soon in the night.”

Clary gave her a wry look. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said, “but it would help if you didn’t speak like a Medieval bard when you were giving me compliments.”

Olianthe just grinned at her. “If I may,” she said, slipping her arm from Clary’s to reach for her hand instead, her golden glove slippery as silk against Clary’s fingers, “I know where I would bring you to continue this evening.”

“Do you now?” But Clary took her hand. “All right then, your Highness. Wow me.”

Obediently, Olianthe swept her closer, drawing Clary against her body and wrapping them in her cloth-of-gold cloak with her free hand. “As you wish,” she murmured, and Clary felt a flutter in the pit of her stomach.

She did not see what Olianthe did, if she did anything. But just as it was occurring to Clary that putting herself in the hands of a faerie she barely knew might not be the best idea in the world the night came alight in waves of green and blue and brightest gold, as if a celestial peacock had come down and embraced the two girls in its wings. Clary gasped and the air she drew into her lungs carried the scent of ancient woodlands with it, redwoods older than humanity and the silvery shadows that ran laughing beneath their branches, not Shadowhunters but Shadow _dancers_ —

And then the light was gone, and when Clary pulled back Olianthe let her go at once.

“What _was_ that?” Clary demanded, knowing her voice had a wild bite to it and unable to care. She whirled, angry fear baring its teeth in her gut as she took in their surroundings. “Where the _fuck_ are we?”

“That is how the Scions travel between,” Olianthe said. She made no move to approach Clary, only watching her, bemusement staining those inhuman eyes. “And this is Central Park.” She tilted her head. “It is faster method of travel than the mortal subway, is it not?”

“You should have _asked,”_ Clary snapped, her heart still beating painfully fast in her breast. “Or at least _warned_ me first—’radia, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“I apologise,” Olianthe said at once. She sounded so heartfelt that Clary actually found herself calming down, startled by the genuine regret in the faerie’s voice. Or at least, it sounded genuine. “You told me to ‘wow’ you. I understood that as permission, when clearly that was not the case. I did not mean to distress you.”

_Faeries can’t lie._ Other details might change, from story to story, myth to myth, but they all agreed on that. And Simon had confirmed that Jace had said the same, and for all his faults, a Shadowhunter would know, wouldn’t they?

Clary nodded slowly. “It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting anything like that, and it scared me.”

Olianthe’s face did not give away her thoughts as a human’s would have. In the short time they’d known each other, Clary had already gotten the sense that anything gleaned from Olianthe’s expression—or bearing, or tone, or anything else humans understood by the term ‘body language’—was only what the princess allowed to be seen. Never was that clearer than in moments like this one, when her face drained of all expression, leaving it as blank and perfect as something carved from marble.

Vampires and werewolves had been human once; warlocks had human parents. But the girl in front of her had never been human, and never would be.

It was important to remember that.

Animation returned to Olianthe’s face, and morphed her features into a determined expression. “Will you sit with me?” she asked. “I would like to establish something between us before we go further.”

Surprise pricked Clary, but she nodded. “Sure.” Curious, she followed Olianthe to a nearby bench, then raised her eyebrows in wordless question.

“You have with you the magnifying glass I sent you,” Olianthe said without preamble. “Will you show it to me, please?”

Whatever Clary had been expecting, that was not it. Growing more confused by the second, she reached into her jacket and withdrew the magnifying glass. The handle, shaped into a gracefully rearing unicorn, fit smoothly in her hand. “How did you know I had this?”

“I forged it,” Olianthe said simply. “Though that bond will fade soon. I will not be able to sense its presence much longer; if it were otherwise it could not fulfil its purpose.” She took the beautiful object in her gloved hand. It shone silver against her gold glove.

“I don’t understand.”

“It would not be a sound weapon against me if I always knew when you were about to draw it,” Olianthe said, and before Clary could respond she took the handle in one hand and the head of the glass in the other and twisted sharply.

There was a sound like a key turning.

And then light—peacock-blue-gold-green, reflecting back from Olianthe’s eyes like a mirror—came from the join of handle to glass, and Olianthe pulled, then, pulling on the handle as if on the hilt of a sword—the motion precisely that of someone drawing a blade from a sheath—

_This is impossible_ , Clary thought—as impossible as teleporting across the city in less time than it took to blink, and just as real before her eyes. Because as the handle drew away from the glass there _was_ a blade, a long razor of steel that just kept coming and coming, emerging from—from some pocket dimension within the magnifier, maybe, although _how_ , and _what_ , and finally it was free and Olianthe swept it up for Clary to see, the unicorn turned from handle to hilt, new-formed wings outspread to form a crossguard—

“It’s a shortsword,” Clary breathed. “Holy Lord and Lady, you gave me a _shortsword.”_ The thing was as long as her _arm_ , from elbow to middle fingertip. _“Why?”_

Olianthe proffered it. Numbly, Clary took it, stunned by how light it was, how the dim glow of the streetlamps splintered on the sword’s edge. It was as thin as a dagger, and a row of polished crystals—gemstones?—ran down the blade in a way she’d never seen before.

“Because fear and trust cannot co-exist,” Olianthe said softly. She made an incongruous picture, in her crane-emblazoned almost-gown on a Central Park bench. The sum of two worlds that did not often touch. “I gave you cause to fear when I brought us here, and truly, you were right to be afraid. It would be a simple matter for me to do you harm. Thus.” She nodded at the weapon.

Clary took a moment to parse Olianthe’s words. “Let me get this straight,” she said finally. “You’re giving me a sword… You _gave_ me a sword… To make me feel safe around you?”

“No,” Olianthe said. “It is not to make you _feel_ safe. It is to make you safe.” She gestured towards the sword. “The blade is steel and silver and alicorn, spelled and quenched in blessed water. It will shape itself to your need, your desire. It will cut through the magic—or the heart—of any of my people.”

Clary stared at her. Then at the jewelled blade. Then back at Olianthe. “This thing can _kill you?”_

“Yes.” Olianthe’s eyebrows curved in a slight frown. “Did you think I would give you a dull-edged blade?”

“I didn’t think you’d give me a blade at all, honestly.” In slow-motion, Clary swung it from side to side, testingly. It was light as a feather, like a toy in her hand—and ridiculously beautiful, for something forged to kill.

“I will not take it back.”

“Who said I’m giving it back?” Clary lowered her arm, careful to point the blade away from herself and Olianthe. “It’s incredible. Th—” Just in time, she remembered not to say _thank you_. “I don’t know what to say.”

Incredibly, Olianthe smiled, a bright, golden expression so dazzling it ought to come with it’s own warning label. “Among my people,” she said, “silence is the greatest form of gratitude.”

“Then I will be silent.” Clary smiled back at her. “Does it have a name?”

Olianthe shook her head. “No. One does not name a gift.”

“Not the same as an _armask_ _ō_ , then.” Belatedly, Clary gave Olianthe a wary look. “It’s not, right? Giving me this isn’t a claim or a proposal or anything like that?”

Olianthe laughed. “No,” she said again. “We are not Nephilim. I would not arm someone I did not care for, that is true, but I give this freely and without obligation.” The words had the ring of ritual, and Clary thought she might recognise them from stories; they were a promise of safety, an assurance that fragile mortals would not be entrapped by accepting that which was offered, be it food or, apparently, incredible swords. “I make no claim upon you. I only wish to be certain that you can defend yourself from me, should you feel the need.”

“Do you think I’ll ever feel the need?” Clary asked lightly.

“I hope you do not. I will do my best to ensure that you do not. But evidently I understand humans less well than I thought, and I would know that you will be safe should I make a mistake.” Olianthe paused. “I admire you, Clary. I wish to know you better. And I believe that the relationship I would enjoy attempting to build with you requires us to be on something like equal footing. I cannot make you as I am, but I can ensure you are protected from what I am.”

She met Clary’s eyes, more calmly than any human making a similar declaration could possibly be. “Do you understand?”

Clary nodded slowly. “I think so. You’re saying we can’t date if I don’t feel safe, so you’re making me safe.” She raised an eyebrow. “Basically?”

“Precisely.” Olianthe smiled.

Clary nodded again and raised her new sword. “Beautiful,” she murmured, guessing that Olianthe could hear and would accept the compliment for her gift, as she would not—could not?—accept outright thanks. “I’ll have to think about what to name it.”

Olianthe inclined her head, accepting this. She held out the round head of the magnifying glass; when Clary took it, she saw a slot in the metal which—yes, the blade slid back into place inside it, disappearing inside like a magic trick _(like real magic)._ The glass in the magnifier rippled like water as it absorbed the sword, and the hilt-handle flowed liquidly, the unicorn’s wings melting away. In an instant, Clary was left holding a simple magnifying glass again—pretty, but simple.

And she’d once thought sword-canes were cool. They had _nothing_ on this.

She tucked the glass back into her jacket, and only then recognised the tension that had left her body. She hadn’t been aware of being afraid of Olianthe—of Olianthe’s _potential_ —but apparently she had been, because knowing she had something that could dispel faerie magic was like a weight being lifted. She’d heard too many stories from her dad, and read too many more since then, not to be aware of how dangerous the fey were, or at least could be. Olianthe was beautiful and funny and thoughtful, and ridiculously sexy, but Clary didn’t really _know_ her yet. It would be so easy for Olianthe to hurt her, and even a promise not to do so—which Olianthe had not quite given, yet—didn’t go as far to make Clary feel safe as did the knowledge that she could defend herself now.

She’d always preferred fighting back on her own behalf to being protected or rescued.

“Have you dated humans before?” Clary asked, wondering how Olianthe had realised Clary needed this.

Unexpectedly, Olianthe laughed. “No,” she said. “It is discouraged.” She did not explain.

Clary frowned. “This,” she gestured between them, “isn’t going to get you in trouble, is it?”

“No,” Olianthe said simply.

Clary considered her a moment, but decided not to press. It was Olianthe’s affair, after all, how she followed or broke her people’s rules. “Is it true,” she said slowly, “that—your people—can’t lie?”

The faerie smirked. “If I could, you ought not to trust my answer,” she pointed out.

“I’ll risk it,” Clary said wryly.

Olianthe dipped her head. “It is true. None of my species can say directly what we know to be untrue.”

Clary took a moment to examine each word of that for its implications. “So you can tell an untruth if you believe it to be true?”

“Yes.”

“And you can imply a thing you believe to be untrue?”

“That also, yes.”

Clary nodded slowly. “Does that apply to promises? If you give your word, can you break it?”

“No.” Olianthe was, once again, almost eerily calm. Clary suspected that the faerie knew where this was going, but Olianthe seemed unperturbed. Then again, she might not have let Clary see it if she was nervous.

Clary chose her words carefully. “Will you promise to do your best never to hurt me, or allow me to be hurt by any of your people?”

“What constitutes ‘hurt’?” Olianthe asked, almost business-like. Probably faeries bargained and debated their promises like lawyers, like contracts, but it was still slightly unnerving to get that response to that particular question.

So Clary considered. “Physical injury. Mental injury. Keeping me somewhere against my will. Altering or affecting my will, mind, emotions, or body through magic or drugs without my express verbal permission. Causing me to believe an untruth through magic or drugs.” She tried to run through what she knew of faerie powers. “Taking me outside of normal human or Earth time without warning and my permission.” She looked at Olianthe. “Does that cover the possibilities?”

“I believe so.” Oddly, Olianthe looked pleased; Clary didn’t know if she was impressed with Clary’s bargaining, or just pleased that Clary had done so well at it. Or perhaps so badly? “By my name, I do so swear to do my best never to hurt you, nor allow any of my people to hurt you, having agreed to your definition of ‘hurt’.”

It sounded ominous, but Clary couldn’t think of anything she’d forgotten to include in her definition. “Okay then,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I promise the same.”

“I am glad to hear it.” Olianthe smiled, and rose to her feet. “Now,” she said, “may I show you why I brought you here?”

*

Clary followed Olianthe through the park, surprised by how at ease she felt being here after dark. She considered herself a badass—with, she thought, plenty of justification—but even if she had taken her gun with her, she would not want to walk through Central Park at night by herself. Guns could as often make a situation worse as make them better, if you didn’t know what you were doing or if your luck was bad, and the fact was Clary was a woman—a _short_ woman, even. A huge percentage of the male population was a threat to her, and a significant proportion of that percentage would go past ‘potential threat’ to ‘actual threat’ if they had the chance. And although she despised the people who would call it her own fault for getting attacked if she was walking through here at night, it was still not something she would risk under normal circumstances.

But these weren’t normal circumstances. She had a magnifying sword (hah, great name!) in her pocket and a faerie princess walking beside her, and it was difficult to consider herself in any danger from mere human men.

The tree cover gave way, and even in the dark Clary recognised the Sheep Meadow, the 15 acre open space that, a month or two ago, would have been thronged with picnickers and sunbathers during the daylight hours. Now it was empty, gilded with silver where the moonlight ran soft fingers over the grass, overcast by distant stars.

Beside her, Olianthe stopped. “We are here.”

Clary blinked, momentarily confused. Then, as understanding dawned, she drew out her magnifying glass.

Olianthe said nothing, only stood with her hands clasped behind her back as Clary pulled on the handle. The unicorn’s wings swept out, guarding her fingers as her unnamed sword came free in a streak of jewelled silver, and Clary dropped the remaining glass head in her pocket so she could grasp the hilt with two hands.

She didn’t allow herself to fear this wouldn’t work, didn’t think about how ridiculous she would look if it did nothing. She just swung the blade.

And in its wake as it moved across her vision—right to left, a shining flash—she saw what Olianthe had wanted to show her.

The meadow—the meadow was full of—

Tears stung Clary’s eyes, and she let the sword fall against her hip, pressing a hand to her mouth at the unexpected dart of pain in her chest. But it was a good pain, disbelief breaking into a joy so childlike and sweet, innocent and immense, that it was nearly agony; she wanted to sob and laugh and _sing_ —

Olianthe made a small _chirrup_ noise in her throat, and one of the creatures raised its head from the grass. It snorted, and tossed its head; the moonlight flashed through its diamond horn in a silver rainbow.

_“Ai,_ come, Nandira! I have someone I would like you to meet.” Olianthe’s voice was fondly exasperated. Clary’s heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear her.

_They’re real, they’re real they’re real they’re real—_

The unicorn huffed, but trotted across the space to meet them, and when it moved Clary’s breath caught in her throat. It was—there were no words, _beautiful_ and _exquisite_ were both too small, too mean to embody the river-like grace of its powerful legs, the whitewater-arc of its mane. It was a shooting star given flesh, the same fiery whiteness, the same sense of something come down from the night skies to walk upon the earth. It was nothing like the creatures Clary had imagined as a little girl, and it was perfect.

It came to a halt in front of them, and nuzzled the hand Olianthe offered. It was horse-like, but not a horse, could not be mistaken for one even without the incredible, impossible horn spiralling from its brow. Its mane was short and feathery, standing straight up from its crescent-moon neck, and there were braids in it, here and there, woven with tiny silver bells and crystal beads. The mane itself continued in a downy stripe down the unicorn’s back, like a ribbon of thicker fur against the velvety plushness of its coat. That ribbon snaked down its slender, whip-like tail, the mane (if it could still be called a mane) bursting into an explosion of long feathery plumes towards the tip. It was nothing like a lion’s tail, easily as long as the unicorn’s body— if it had not been held up it would have dragged along the ground. It didn’t have the cloven hooves or beard of a heraldic unicorn, either, though its fetlocks were edged in soft, silky mists of hair.

The eyes with which it regarded Clary were a bright, shining green.

“Clary,” Olianthe said, “this is Nandira. As I lead my mother’s knights, so does she lead this herd, and I am honoured to be her chosen rider in this life.” The princess stroked the soft nose of the unicorn. “Nandira, this is Clary. She is as brave as any ten of our knights, and I am trying to woo her. Behave.”

Clary shot Olianthe a startled look, but the faerie girl was smiling, clearly teasing. The unicorn—Nandira—huffed again, and swung her head for a better look at Clary.

Clary’s mouth went dry. “Can she understand us?”

“Of course.” Olianthe’s voice was fond again. _“_ _Tähtisuar_ —you call them unicorns, I think?—are as intelligent as dolphins. More so, perhaps. And they have strict ideas about courtesy.”

“In that case…” Still holding her sword by her side, Clary took a step back so she had room to bow, her heart pounding in her throat. “Hello, Nandira. I am… I’m honoured to meet you.”

The unicorn regarded her for a long moment, and Clary was surprised—and not surprised, not surprised at all—to realise that being rejected by this creature would really hurt, would wound her as the antipathy of the other girls at St. Xavier’s had never done.

But then Nandira returned Clary’s bow, very gracefully and gravely, bending one white leg and extending the other, dipping her beautiful head so that the bells in her mane chimed softly. And Clary felt like she was floating, levitating with this huge golden light inside her, sparkling and fizzing.

“She likes you.” Olianthe sounded pleased. “You may touch her now, if you wish.”

It was like being told you could fly. Clary’s every cell was singing as she put away her sword and carefully extended her hand, refusing to let herself tremble. It wasn’t fear, but awe threatening to shake her apart as Nandira straightened up and turned those emerald eyes on her.

Until, with a huff that clearly said Clary was taking too long, she pushed her nose into Clary’s hand.

Clary’s heart stopped, frozen in a kind of stunned joy. Her mind refused to process what was happening, could not make sense of the warm solidity of Nandira’s nose—muzzle?—pressed against her palm, as real as Clary herself. It simply couldn’t be true, could not be real—and yet it couldn’t _not_ be. Nandira did not dissolve into mist and starlight, the way Clary had more than half expected her to; the skin around her mouth and nostrils was like velvet, and her breath had a spearmint sweetness. The warmth streaming off her body was as solid as the rest of her, as solid as the Swarovski-sparkle of her diamond horn.

“You’re really real,” Clary whispered. “Aren’t you?”

Nandira snorted, tossing her head slightly so the bells in her mane rang a counterpoint. _Obviously!_

Despite the fragile sacredness of the tableau, Clary laughed, unable not to. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it? Of course you’re real.” She raised her other hand to stroke Nandira’s neck. “And _beautiful.”_

The unicorn huffed again, but this time it sounded approving. _I like this one!_ Clary imagined her saying, and grinned, amazed and amused and breathless. Nandira’s coat was thick and soft, like very plush velvet. It was _fluffy_.

Clary had turned into a mouse, had met vampires and faeries, werewolves and warlocks. She had seen Abbadon, and sent it back to Hell with her bow and the light of her world’s sun. But the Shadow World had never felt as real to her, or as immensely other and full of magic, as it did at this moment. Her heart _ached_ with it, the disbelieving awareness that she was face to face with a _unicorn_.

Whatever happened now—however bad Simon’s new life turned—she would remember, and treasure, this moment until the day she died.

_“An mbeidh tú in iúl di turas, a bhuanchara?”_ Olianthe murmured beside her.

Clary turned to look at her. “Sorry?”

Olianthe smiled. The moonlight turned the gold on her dress and gloves to silver. “I was not talking to you.”

Nandira snorted and pulled away—only to nuzzle Clary’s cheek, whickering softly. Her horn didn’t so much as brush Clary’s hair, the unicorn was so careful.

_“Oh,”_ Clary whispered helplessly. Her vision blurred, and she couldn’t breathe, overwhelmed by the affection, the sense of being accepted and found worthy by every dream she’d ever had. Without thinking she threw her arms around Nandira’s head, hugging her.

“Thank you,” Clary breathed against Nandira’s nose. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Clary.” Olianthe laid a gentle hand on Clary’s shoulder. “She will let you ride her.”

_“What?”_

Nandira stamped a pearlescent hoof, and Clary let her go, stunned. “Really?” she asked. Her voice might have quivered, might have broken a little.

She swore those green eyes rolled, and the mare tossed her head once more. She turned so that Clary was facing her side.

A clearer invitation, Clary could not imagine.

“B-but…” Clary looked at Olianthe. Her mind could not catch up. “You said—you’re her chosen rider. Right?”

The faerie princess was smiling like the cat who’d gotten the cream. “That is so. But sometimes, _tähtisuar_ make exceptions.” She placed a gloved hand on Nandira’s white neck. “They are _sydänäki_ —heart-seers. Empaths, I think you would say. Nandira has seen your heart, and judged you worthy. She will bear you.”

_She has seen your heart…_ Clary was going to humiliate herself any second by bursting into tears. Relieved, joyous tears, but tears all the same.

But Nandira huffed, and stamped a foot again, and Clary had to laugh through the breathy half-sobs, because the unicorn was not going to stand for that.

“I’ve… I’ve never ridden a horse. I know you’re not a horse,” she told Nandira hastily. “I just mean… I don’t know how.”

Olianthe laughed. “Nandira is no mortal mule. She will not let you fall. Come.” Without warning, she went on one knee in the grass, heedless of her beautiful clothes, and extended her folded hands. “I will help you up.”

Hesitantly—this had to be a dream, didn’t it? She could not be awake, this couldn’t be really happening—it was too perfect—Clary put her foot in Olianthe’s hands, resting her weight against Nandira’s warm side. The faerie girl did not react to Clary’s weight at all, and not for the first time Clary wondered just how strong Olianthe really was.

“Now I will lift you,” Olianthe said. “You must swing your other leg over Nandira’s back, and hold her mane.”

“Wait, shouldn’t there be a saddle—? A bridle—?” But Olianthe was pushing her up and Clary had to bite back a startled _eep!_ as she was suddenly high above the ground. She just had the presence of mind to remember to get her leg over Nandira’s back, and then she was up, her fingers tangling without thought in the feathery spill of the unicorn’s short mane, jingling the bells.

“Holy Aradia, I’m riding a unicorn,” Clary whispered. “Oh my gods. Is this really happening? Somebody pinch me.”

“I would obey, but I swore never to hurt you,” Olianthe said, climbing to her feet.

“No, it’s okay, it’s just—it’s a human thing. Which we do when our minds are blown. Which mine is.” Clary swallowed hard. Nandira was not as large as the Thoroughbreds who pulled the carriages in and around Central Park for the tourists—in size she reminded Clary of the Arabians she glimpsed sometimes at the fancier riding schools. But where an Arabian was light and delicate-looking, Nandira had more of the lines of a Shire horse, like something bred to carry armoured knights to war. Now that Clary was on her back, there was no way to miss that Nandira was not like those sweet, sparkly things the princesses in the storybooks pet and preened over. She was powerful; Clary could feel the hard muscle of the unicorn’s body pressed against her thighs.

It was thrilling.

Olianthe stepped clear—and threw back her head in a ululating cry that shattered the night’s silence into a thousand glittering pieces. There was nothing human in it, the sound closer to the howl of a wolf than anything Clary’s throat could have made; but it caught fire in Clary’s chest and without thinking about it she opened her mouth and roared with her, wordless and wild and full of a fierce, defiant joy. Her heart raced and she howled at the sky, nothing like Olianthe’s shrill scream but counterpoint to it, primal and free and _here, see me, I’m alive, I’m alive!_

And Olianthe was laughing and the herd were moving, trotting first but then faster, moving over the grass in an sea of shining white and deepest ebony, grey and roan and palomino gold, their horns burning like stars in the dark—

And Nandira reared without warning but Clary didn’t fall, her legs locked to the mare’s sides like magnets by some unicorn magic as Nandira screamed her own challenge to the stars, and Clary realised this was the sound Olianthe had been making, this was the scream hers had mimicked—

And then the mare’s hooves hit the earth and they were off, faster than could be believed. The grass blurred beneath Nandira’s feet and Clary gasped, her breath ripped away by the sheer pounding speed as she bent low over Nandira’s neck, holding tight to her mane. This was flight, this was how it must feel to have wings, the bells singing in Nandira’s hair and her long tail whipping like the trail of a comet behind them and Clary heard herself laughing, felt it spilling out of her throat in shining gold as Nandira dove among her herd, racing them, leading them—

If this was a dream, she never wanted to wake up—

She turned her head at a sudden streak of black and saw Olianthe running barefoot, her gold cloak spread like wings at her back as she raced with the herd. Before Clary could do more than gasp she saw the princess leap, grabbing the mane of a nearby unicorn and swinging herself up mid-gallop, as if it were nothing, as if she were born to do it, and she saw Clary watching and raised her hand, hailing her, even in the dark those peacock-jewelled eyes shone with fey fire—

Clary felt herself grinning, felt the amazed delight sweep over her face, too huge to hold—and she laughed, because she couldn’t hold it, couldn’t hold it at all. The stars flashed past overhead and they were outrunning the wind, they were flying, Clary let go of Nandira’s mane and held her arms out like wings and whooped, unable to bear it, in love with the night, the world, coming apart with the kind of perfection that had never belonged to the waking world. She shrieked and heard Olianthe yell with her, pure primitive passion soaring up from the core of her soul, from the depths of her heart; _I am here, I am here and I live—_

She dared the world to hear her.

She didn’t know how long they ran for. At some point Olianthe and her mount pulled up alongside Clary and Nandira, and when Clary held out her hand Olianthe leapt across, sliding into place on Nandira’s back behind Clary. Her gloves were gone as she grasped Nandira’s mane and wrapped her other strong arm around Clary’s waist, holding her tightly, safe, laughing in her ear. The warmth of her melted into Clary’s back, her arms, sparking like neon in her veins—

They didn’t so much dismount as fall, sometime later. The magic holding her in place was suddenly gone, but Clary forgot to be afraid as Olianthe’s arm tightened around her. They spun mid-air in a flutter of black silk and blue velvet, red hair and gold, and Olianthe landed on her back with Clary atop her, face to face and safe and sound, _I swore never to hurt you_ , the herd parting around them like a river. Clary was breathing hard and every gasp drew the scent of crushed grass and faerie girl into her lungs, and it seemed like just another kind of flying when she leaned down and kissed the fairy tale waiting for it.

Olianthe’s hands were strong and sure as they found Clary’s waist, her lips soft and sweet and just as hungry, just as hotly urgent as Clary’s. Clary buried her fingers in Olianthe’s long hair, the impossible silkiness rivalling Nandira’s mane and it was like a riding a unicorn, straddling this wild girl and tasting magic on her tongue, Clary’s blood still whipped up and racing from that moonlit gallop across the meadow. St. Elmo’s fire burned hot under her skin and the tie in Olianthe’s hair came undone and it was spilling out on the grass, a river of spun gold around Clary’s hands, and Clary squirmed, panting, exhilarated and aching with delicious happiness, with the impossible bliss of it—

Olianthe sat up suddenly, her hands sliding down Clary’s thighs and guiding her into position in the faerie’s lap, and Clary thought it again, _wild thing, as untamed as a unicorn_ and she was licking into Olianthe’s mouth and purring with smug pleasure at the shocked, hungry sound Olianthe made, the power in those arms around her. She bit at Olianthe’s lip and the other girl growled, low and animal in her throat; it shot down Clary’s spine like an arrow and she rocked her hips, gasping a little. Olianthe broke away from her mouth to kiss her jaw, dragging her lips down Clary’s throat and Clary fisted her hands in her hair, pulling her closer, yes, yes, even as Olianthe’s hands stayed still and refused to wander and it was _maddening_ —

“Touch me,” Clary ordered, growling a bit herself, and felt the rush of wet heat between her legs when Olianthe buried her face in Clary’s neck and _shuddered_ against her—as if she were overwhelmed, as if tiny human Clary had the power to unravel a Seelie princess—

Well, of _course_ she did—but—

Clary swallowed, mouth dry, and kissed Olianthe’s ear—it tapered to a sharp point beneath her hair—and into its inhuman whorls, she breathed, _“Touch me.”_

Olianthe groaned, low and hot, and—and her hands moved, slowly, almost, impossibly, _uncertainly_ higher. Ungloved, her palms were warm through Clary’s trousers, and Clary kissed her in reward. In kissing Olianthe expressed no hesitance, at least; she surged against Clary’s lips and it was so good, her hands sweeping up over Clary’s thighs, so close to where Clary wanted them, damn it—

“You amaze me,” Olianthe whispered, and Clary’s heart was pounding, pounding, pounding—

Beside them, something equine whickered. There was a distinct tone of amusement to it.

With a low ripple of hoarse laughter, Olianthe pulled away from Clary’s mouth. _“_ _Níorbh fhéidir leat nach bhfuil tar éis fanacht cúpla nóiméad níos mó?”_ she asked.

Nandira snorted, stepping closer to push her face between the two girls. Despite the slickness in her panties, Clary had to grin, reaching up to pet the unicorn’s soft nose. “Chaperoning, huh?” She glanced at Olianthe with wide eyes, suddenly remembering a vital part of the unicorn myth. “Oh gods, is that a thing? Do you have to be a virgin to ride her?”

Was that why Olianthe was so careful, so almost-shy whenever things got a little hot and heavy?

“What?” Olianthe looked startled. “Why would that be?”

“It’s part of the unicorn myth.” Clary hesitated, seeing Olianthe’s confusion. “…Isn’t it?”

“I have never heard such a thing.” The princess’ bewilderment was beginning to dissolve into amusement. “What a bizarre fancy. This is what mortals believe of _tähtisuar,_ that they police our beds?” She grinned.

Even Nandira seemed to be giving her an odd look now. Heat rose to Clary’s cheeks. “So…not a thing, then?”

Olianthe cocked her head. “I do not understand what ‘thing’ you reference, but no _tähtisua_ I have ever heard of concerned themselves with the sexual experience of their riders.”

Which…made more sense, really. Why would a unicorn care if you’d had sex or not?

“Maybe it’s because… They only let worthy people ride them, right?” Clary said slowly, thinking aloud. “Maybe some human, somewhen, got mixed up. They used to think virginity meant you were good. Maybe they thought to be good enough for a unicorn, you had to be a virgin?” It didn’t sound quite right to her, still.

“Perhaps,” Olianthe said evenly. Clary suspected that she’d lost the faerie girl somewhere along the way. “But Nandira is correct. I should take you home.”

Clary glanced at the unicorn, wondering how, exactly, the mare had communicated that. Nandira blinked, her green gaze perfectly innocent. “If you must,” Clary sighed, deliberately dramatic.

“It is not entirely necessary,” Olianthe said. “If you wish to stay—”

“I was joking,” Clary explained, trying not to grin. “She’s right, I should get home.” Nandira had pulled out of the way; Clary darted in to press a quick kiss to Olianthe’s lips. “Much as I’d like to stay,” she said softly.

When Clary pulled back, Olianthe was smiling. “As I wish you could, also,” she murmured. “But perhaps there will be other nights?”

Clary grinned. “Oh, most definitely.”

*

“I think I know what I want to name my sword,” Clary declared when the green-blue-gold light of Olianthe’s teleporting deposited them outside her house.

“May I know what you have decided?” Olianthe asked. She looked very out of place, standing on the street with Clary’s perfectly normal home for a backdrop. All the tiny letters in the cereal boxes had not given the same sense of the two sides of Clary’s life colliding as having a Seelie princess on her doorstep.

“Buffy. I’m going to call her Buffy.”

Olianthe nodded gravely.

“It’s the name of a great warrior,” Clary explained, somehow managing to keep a straight face. “She slayed a lot of monsters and saved the world. Multiple times.”

“A fine and honourable name, then,” Olianthe agreed. Someday Clary would have to introduce her to _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , but for now, that was an acceptable response. “May she guard you well.”

Clary wanted very badly to tell Olianthe _thank you_. For Buffy, for Nandira, for the wild, magical ride with the herd and the incredible kisses afterward. She didn’t know what to say instead.

“Tonight was amazing,” she said finally. “I had a wonderful time.”

It sounded so lame to her, but Olianthe smiled. “I also.” Her hair was still loose, falling down to her hips like sunbeams. She brushed her fingertips over Clary’s jaw, so lightly Clary could hardly feel it. “Call me, when you would see me again. I will come.”

“How do I call you?” Clary turned her head and caught Olianthe’s fingertip between her teeth, gently. Her stomach clenched tight at Olianthe’s soft hiss.

“Speak my name to any passing insect,” the faerie girl said hoarsely. Her eyes were fixed on Clary’s mouth. “A bird will do just as well. They will pass the message on. Or leave a note. I will get it.”

She pulled her hand away—then cupped Clary’s jaw with it and kissed her, softly but deeply, the fire banked and simmering but not snuffed out, not by a long shot.

It was possible that Clary was ever so slightly dizzy when the kiss ended.

“I’ll do that,” she managed, swallowing. Olianthe looked a little bit smug. “Good night, Olianthe.” _Thank you._

Olianthe dipped her head. “Walk in starlight and in peace, Clary.”

She did not leave as Clary fumbled the door open—but when Clary looked from her bedroom window a few minutes later, the princess was vanished like mist.

And when she finally got to bed, her dreams that night were silver, and gold, and peacock green.

* * *

NOTES

 

An alicorn is a unicorn horn.

_An mbeidh tú in iúl di turas, a bhuanchara?_ —This is, in modern Gaelic (Irish); will you let her ride, xxx? _A bhuanchara_ is literally ‘eternal friend’, and is used in the sense of platonic soulmate.

St. Elmo’s fire is a weather phenomenon manifesting as a glowing ball of light. Once upon a time people blames faery creatures for it.

_Níorbh fhéidir leat nach bhfuil tar éis fanacht cúpla nóiméad níos mó?_ —Could you not have waited a few moments more? (Gaelic, Irish)


	9. Epilogue

_“I don’t understand how you can do it. Knowing what they think of you—what they_ would _think of you, if they knew—what they think of me—us—how can you just bend the knee and swear allegiance to them? They don’t deserve your loyalty!”_

_“It’s not about loyalty to the Clave. The mission is more important than quibbling over leadership.”_

_“Hunting demons, you mean.”_

_“Yes. Simon, you’ve barely seen the Shadow World yet. You have no idea how bad it is. The demons—they’re not pests we can ignore.”_

_“How bad can they be, if the rest of the world hasn’t even noticed?”_

_“Oh, they’ve noticed. They just don’t have explanations for what they can see is going on… Do you know how many murders there were in the city last year? Almost a thousand. Nearly seven hundred of them were related to demonic activity. And that’s only out of the ones the mundane police know about. Or how about the numbers of people locked away in institutions because demons have driven them insane? Or the ones who simply disappeared, never to be seen again? Or—”_

_“I get it. It’s a problem.”_

_“No, it’s_ war _. One that we’re losing. We need everyone we can get on the front lines._ I’m _needed, Simon. So yes, even if I don’t agree with everything the Clave says, I’m still going to fight. Because it’s a war worth fighting.”_

Jace tossed and turned restlessly in sleep’s grip, memories of arguing with Simon about his dedication bleeding into something other, stranger, worse as the sun rose.

_They were standing in a dark place, dark and cold, and Simon was holding a knife._

_“I have to,” he said. He was weeping. “You’ll understand someday. It’s worth it.”_

_“No!” Jace lunged for him, but he was too slow. The blade flashed down, opening Simon’s arm to the bone, and the blood that poured forth was gold, gold, gold. It became a river of golden coins, and as they tumbled into the dark Jace saw that both sides of each coin bore a face, and the face was Simon’s, horned and monstrous on one side, beautiful and cold on the other._

_The darkness lightened, and the coins were gone, and Jace was running through lashing rain on the roof of the Institute, running as fast as he’d ever run in his life. His bare feet pounded the wet ground and the night sky was black as pitch above him, raw and angry._

_Simon was standing on the edge of the roof._

_He turned when Jace approached, and maybe it was the shadows and maybe it wasn’t, but his eyes were blacker than the sky._

_“Simon, get away from there!” Jace called desperately. In the wind and rain, it would be too easy for Simon to fall—but Jace could accidentally push him over himself, if he got too close. All it would take was one misstep on the slick rooftop… “You’re going to fall!”_

_Simon smiled. “It’s okay, Jace.” He looked back at the sheer edge before him and spread his arms. “You can’t fall when you have wings.”_

_“You don’t have wings! Simon!_ Simon!”

_But Simon didn’t hear him, or ignored him, and stepped out into empty space—_

*

Jace plummeted into waking, his heart beating staccato against his ribcage and Simon’s name on his lips. It took a long, horrible moment to realise that it had not happened, was not real. Simon was warm and asleep beside him, whole and safe, exactly as he should be.

There was no rain, and no roof.

Unable to stop himself, Jace rolled onto his side and wrapped his arms around his lover, holding him tightly. He felt Simon wake but didn’t let him go, needing to know in his blood and bones that Simon was here, here and all right.

“Jace?” Simon said sleepily. He nuzzled into Jace’s neck. “Wazzup? You ’kay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Jace whispered, more to himself than to Simon. He kissed his _aikane_ ’s hair. “I just wanted to tell you I love you.”

Simon hummed happily. Despite the unease lingering in the back of Jace’s throat, he had to smile. “Love you too,” Simon mumbled. Jace could feel his smile, pressed against Jace’s skin.

“I mean it,” Jace said softly. “I love you, Simon. I swear it by the Angel.” He paused, realising that Simon probably didn’t understand the significance of the oath. He brushed his lips over Simon’s hair again. “That makes it an unbreakable promise,” he whispered. “Just so you know. I’ll never change my mind. I’ll never leave.” His throat felt tight. “I’ll never let you fall.”

Simon hummed again. “Good. I like it.” He shifted in Jace’s arms. “’S time to get up?”

Jace glanced at the light coming from the window. “I think so.”

Simon sighed, and pressed a kiss to Jace’s shoulder. “’Kay. I’ll make coffee.”

He stumbled up out of bed, and Jace had to hide his unbearably fond smile in his pillow for a long, light moment before he could follow Simon to the kitchen.

*

They said goodbye on the doorstep, feet away from the Dorothea’s old apartment. Someone had been by and repaired the wreckage; there was no longer any sign of Abbadon’s manifestation or the battle that had ensued. Jace suspected the credit lay with the network of warlocks the witch had mentioned; surely they would not leave something as precious—and dangerous—as a Portal unguarded. But he had not tried too hard to find out. If he started asking questions, drawing attention to this place, someone might realise that Jocelyn’s apartment was not as empty as it seemed.

“Wait a sec,” Simon said, just as they were about to part. “I almost forgot—” From somewhere, he fumbled out a thin square of plastic slightly larger than his hand. “Here. For your birthday.”

Bemused, Jace accepted it. “What is it?”

Simon stared at him, then slapped himself on the forehand. “Crap, of course you don’t know—crap. It’s, um, look—” He pried at the plastic, and Jace blinked as it came open, revealing a metallic looking disc of some strange shimmering material. “See? It’s a CD. It holds music the way my iPad holds ebooks, sort of—remember that?”

Jace did. When Simon closed the box and offered it to him again, Jace accepted it.

“I didn’t think of it before, but Izzy’s laptop should be able to play it,” Simon was saying. “If it can’t, let me know, okay?”

“All right.”

Simon smiled. He looked so happy to be giving Jace such an odd thing that Jace didn’t ask any more questions. If it made Simon happy, he would keep the strange plastic box, whatever a ‘CD’ actually was.

When Jace reached the Institute a half-hour or so later, Alec and Izzy were in the kitchen, eating breakfast.

“And the prodigal returns at last,” Isabelle said when she caught sight of him. “Have a good night, Jace?”

“I did, actually.” When she raised her eyebrows at him, he only smiled and showed her the CD. “Do you know what this is?”

To his surprise, Isabelle’s eyes lit up. “Clary showed me how to use those! They’re like music boxes for mundanes.” She held her hand out for it, but Jace whisked it out of her reach.

“Will you show me how to play it?”

“Maybe if you tell me where you got it.” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

_*It was Simon, wasn’t it?*_ Alec asked without looking up.

_*Of course it was.*_

_*You should tell her.*_ Alec’s face remained impassive as he ate his toast. _*_ Agelai _don’t lie to each other.*_

Jace could have responded that they weren’t a real _agela_ —but in every way that mattered, they were.

“Simon gave it to me,” he said aloud. “Happy now?”

“Is that where you were last night?” Izzy parried. “With Simon?”

_*I didn’t say a word!*_ Alec said, answering the bolt of panic before Jace could form it into a question.

“That’s rather a loaded question before a man’s broken his fast,” Jace said finally, keeping his voice level.

Isabelle rolled her eyes. “And that’s the most pathetic attempt at dodging a question I’ve seen this week. Try again.”

Jace’s knuckles went white around the CD box.

_*She won’t care,*_ Alec said softly. _*You know she won’t. You’re our brother, Jace. We love you.*_

Even though that was true—probably true—it still felt like an age before Jace could force the words from his lips. “And if I was?”

“Then I would say it’s taken you long enough to come clean, you idiot.” Isabelle’s lips quirked up at Jace’s disbelief. “What? You thought we’d disown you? Yell? Throw things?”

“You do so like throwing inanimate objects at people’s heads,” Jace said lightly. “It was a very reasonable expectation.”

Alec snorted, and Isabelle grinned outright. _“Someone_ has to make sure you keep up with your agility practise.”

“When I meet the demon who uses plates as missiles, then, and only then, will I submit to your training regimens.” Jace’s chest was tight as a drum. “You really don’t care?”

“About you slacking on your agility training?” Izzy asked sweetly.

“About Simon,” Jace said, more sharply than he’d intended. “And me.”

Her expression softening, Izzy shook her head. Even at this hour, her hair was perfect, not a strand out of place. “As long as he makes you happy, I don’t care if he’s a werewolf-vampire hybrid.” She grinned suddenly. “It’s not as if you can have mutated babies with each other.”

Alec choked, spraying crumbs across the table. “I’m _eating_ ,” he said plaintively, when he’d finished coughing. “I realise no one else may care, but can I please finish breakfast in peace before listening to any more of this family’s madness?”

Izzy pushed back her chair. “Alec dear, you’re dreaming if you think you can have a whole meal in peace.” She patted his head and snagged a piece of toast from his plate, ducking neatly away from his retaliatory swipe. “Good talk, Jace. Glad we cleared the air.”

“Yes,” Jace said, a little dazed. “Me too.”

“She’s going to be leading the Clave someday,” Alec said. It didn’t sound entirely complimentary.

“And on that day, I will go into exile and never look back.” Jace sat down opposite his _parabatai_. “Have fun with Magnus last night?”

_“No.”_ Alec jabbed a finger at Jace. “No more relationship talk until I’m done eating.”

Jace grinned. He should have expected Izzy’s easy acceptance, just as he should have known Alec wouldn’t turn away from him either. But the relief was still enough to make him feel giddy, almost drunk.

They didn’t hate him.

_*We could_ never _hate you,*_ Alec said, his mouth full. _*Not even for a second, you idiot.*_

“What can I say, I’m blond.” Jace blinked as something occurred to him. “On another note, could you look something up for me?”

Alec swallowed his toast. “Depends on what it is.” He looked at Jace questioningly.

“Something Abigor said the other night… It called Simon an _anunnaku_ , whatever that is. And me a _zurnzeaiz._ ” He frowned, remembering it. “Have you heard of either of those before?”

Alec considered for a moment, but then shook his head. “They’re probably from one of the demonic languages, something that wouldn’t translate. Maybe even just insults.” He shrugged. “I’ll try and find out, if you think it matters.”

“Please,” Jace said. He didn’t think Abigor had meant them as insults. The demon had sounded almost…respectful.

“I’ll start looking today.”

“Thank you,” Jace said, and because they were _parabatai_ , brothers, and one, they both knew he meant it for more than a promise to hit the books.

*

After showing him how to play the CD, Isabelle left him alone to listen to it. By her standards, the small smirk on her face as she left was almost circumspect.

And then the music started, and Jace closed his eyes as a fist closed around his heart.

He should have known it would be Simon’s voice on the disc. It seemed that Jace was misjudging everyone around him lately, but that small self-recrimination faded away beneath the smooth, soft strains of Simon’s voice.

 

_“_ _I remember tears streaming down your face_  
When I said, ‘I’ll never let you go’…  
When all those shadows almost killed your light…  
I remember you said, ‘Don’t leave me here alone’,  
But all that’s dead and gone and passed, tonight…”

 

The music was sweeter and softer than anything Jace had heard Simon sing before, the melody gentler, slower, the silvery notes of something like a piano weaving through Jace’s chest, echoing the words. The words… They called to mind the scene in the shower yesterday, when Jace had almost cried with the sudden fear, the sudden certainty that he could not be allowed to keep something so perfect.

But of course, Jace had _not_ wept. Still. When had Simon written this? Had he known a moment like that would come, or was this only meant to be a story?

 

_“_ _Just close your eyes,_  
The sun is going down…  
You’ll be alright—  
No one can hurt you now.  
Come morning light,  
You and I’ll be safe, and, sound…”

 

Soft. Gentle. Tender. Loving. No one, not even Alec and Izzy, would ever think to cradle him the way Simon’s voice did now, would never think he needed this kind of protecting, cherishing. Jace wasn’t sure, himself, that he needed it.

But by the Angel, to hear Simon say it—sing it—

Jace hadn’t been sure, this morning, how much of his promise Simon had heard or understood. But if he’d ever thought to wonder if Simon felt the same, those doubts were gone now. Simon’s voice on the disk ached, and soothed, and the sheer adoration in it ripped Jace’s breath away. This sweetness could not be for him; he couldn’t be worthy of it. How could he be? No one could be, no one could deserve the love Jace heard in Simon’s voice as he sang this…

 

_“Don’t you dare look out your window—_  
 Darling everything’s on fire,  
The war outside our door keeps raging on…  
Hold on to this lullaby,  
Even when the music’s,  
 Gone~…  
Gone…”

 

A knock came on the door. “Jace?”

Jolted out of his reverie, Jace quickly turned off the music the way Izzy had shown him. “You can come in.”

His pulse was still beating hard in his wrists when Alec opened the door. How could he have been so distracted he hadn’t felt his _parabatai_ ’s approach?

Alec paused in the doorway. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine.” He made an effort to tamp down on the roiling whirlpool of conflicting emotion, all the sweetly-bruised feelings Simon’s song had elicited. “What do you need?”

His face uncharacteristically solemn, Alec held up the scroll Jace hadn’t noticed. The seal of gold wax was already broken. “This just arrived by fire message,” Alec said. He sounded weary, and perhaps a little afraid. “It’s from the Clave.”

Every drop of blood in Jace’s body froze over at once. “What do they want?” he asked harshly. He closed the lid of the laptop, as if that could better hide the song that had just been playing.

_Is this about Simon’s powers—or us—or Alec’s angel mark—who do they want, who are they coming for?_

“They’re sending the Inquisitor,” Alec said quietly. “We have two weeks.”

_Everything,_ Jace thought numbly, staring at the innocuous scroll in Alec’s hand. _If they’re sending an Inquisitor, they’re coming for everything. For all of us._

“What are we going to do, Jace?”

Jace swept the icy fear out of Alec’s reach, where his _parabatai_ could not feel it. “We’re going to be ready.” He stood up and strode towards the door. “Come on. You’ve got to find Izzy, and I… I should call Simon.”

_We’re going to be ready._ They would just have to pray, to Raziel and the entire host of Heaven, that they could prepare enough. And if they couldn’t…

If they couldn’t, then Jace would do whatever it took to keep his family safe. No matter what.

_They’re coming for everything._

_For all of us._

* * *

 

NOTES

_Agelai_ = members of the same _agela_.

The song Simon sings on the disc is Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift, although I imagine him singing something closer to the Julia Sheer cover than the original.

 

Aaaaaaaaaand, THAT’S A WRAP, you guys!!! I can’t believe it either, after it took me AN ENTIRE YEAR to even get started. Wooooo! 8D IT’S DONE IT’S DONE IT’S DONE!

Oh lord and lady, this means I have to get started on City of Knives soon. OH MY. SHIT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL, YOU GUYS.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, commented, and left kudos on this fic! And thank you to everyone who will do so in the future, even if I don’t get around to replying. (Carpal tunnel, you guys. It’s a pain in the—well, the hands, actually). I love you all SO MUCH. I’d never have come this far without you. I mean it—Runed would have been abandoned ages ago if not for all the incredible people who’ve encouraged me to keep going with your love for this story!

I will be editing up and polishing this fic over the next few weeks, fixing typos and things. Once that’s done, I’ll post ebook links over on my tumblr (siavahdainthemoon, check out the ‘Runed stuff’ and ‘ruining you with Runed’ tags!) and upload fully corrected versions on ff.net and ao3.

Keep an eye on my tumblr for the City of Dreams cover, which should be coming soon, and the CoD soundtrack!

I LOVE YOU ALL YOU AMAZING PEOPLES! <3


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